Red Hat Rejects Microsoft Deals

Kurtz'sKompund passed us an article detailing another loss in Microsoft's licensing push: Red Hat has summarily rejected Redmond's offer of an alliance. The article also touches on Ubuntu's rejection of the same offer, which we discussed this past weekend. ZDNet reports on comments from Mark Shuttleworth and the Red Hat organization, with Shuttleworth stating "Allegations of 'infringement of unspecified patents' carry no weight whatsoever. We don't think they have any legal merit, and they are no incentive for us to work with Microsoft on any of the wonderful things we could do together." Red Hat was even more blunt, stating the organization refused to pay an "innovation tax" to Microsoft. "Red Hat said there would be no such deal. Referring to previous statements distancing itself from Microsoft, the company insisted: 'Red Hat's standpoint has not changed.' The company referenced a statement written when Microsoft revealed it was partnering with Novell, saying that its position remained unaltered. Red Hat director of corporate communications Leigh Day added: 'We continue to believe that open source and the innovation it represents should not be subject to an unsubstantiated tax that lacks transparency.' Many open-source followers argue that Red Hat, as the largest Linux vendor, would have a lot to lose from partnering with Microsoft."

Comments

Thank goodness

[symbolset]

Somebody has some sense! I was starting to wonder.

Re:Thank goodness

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me tell you -- Microsoft doesn't "partner" with anyone. Companies that try to make that deal are brought, crushed or otherwise disposed of by Bill G.

Re:Thank goodness

[Kjella]

Makes sense and makes sense... How much do you think SCO vs IBM has cost IBM so far, including digging up every document for their fishing expendition, answering all the bullshit motions, writing up all the reasons SCO is wrong, double wrong and still wrong? Think they'll recover a dime when SCO folds? Nope. The coffers are empty if Novell get their motion through, and if not they'll burn on lawyers long before the case has come to a close.

I think the Microsoft deal isn't about whether Microsoft has or doesn't have anything, it's about not being the victim of it. Given the insanely trivial things that can be patented, it'll be a huge undertaking to defend yourself. I doubt you'll find any way to recover those costs, certainly not turn it into a profit. And even if you did, it's a cheap bill for Microsoft for throwing you on the wayside - many companies have ended up there with Microsoft paying them a few bucks while laughing all the way to the bank with the market they captured.

Sooner or later, Microsoft will have to have a show of hands, but not before Novell etc. start getting impatient about "what did we pay for, really? everyone else is doing the same as us, and you're not striking down on them". Until then, FUD beats facts in marketing every day of the week. I bet Novell got a decent deal too for being first, credibility witness and all that. It's the latecomers who say "hmm, maybe we should have a deal too" which they bleed. So yeah, it might make business sense even if the claims are utterly and completely bogus. Sad but true, but they still deserve the flogging they get here.

Re:Thank goodness

[LibertineR]

Many companies successfully partner with Microsoft.

All it takes is a clear understanding of just who wears the condom, and who bends over and assumes the position.

Re:Thank goodness

[Volante3192]

Ok, I'll call your bluff... sues on what grounds?

Microsoft already tried the FUD tactic with the 237 infringing patents in the Department of Defense^W^W^W^WLinux. There's people out there literally begging Microsoft to sue them and MS hasn't yet.

So what, exactly, would the claims be?

Re:Thank goodness

[1800maxim]

RH and Shuttleworth idiots? On the contrary, if anyone is an idiot, that would be Novell. How so? For paying protection money against being prosecuted for unknown (and perhaps even made-up) crimes.

What RedHat and Ubuntu are doing is what Novell should have done. This way, there would be no players in bed with MS.

Perhaps Novell thought that this deal will attract any Linux migrator to them, as in "I guess if these guys partner with MS, their products must clearly interoperate with Windows, not like other untrusted types aka RedHat."

Time will show who the winners and who the losers of this are.

Re:Thank goodness

[fritsd]

Protection from litigation does not exist. So that takes care of the "F" of the FUD :-)

Re:Thank goodness

[Skrynesaver]

Get a grip, RedHat aren't on the desktop, there in the server room, talking to AD with openLDAP and if MS start suing companies running RedHat they're going to alienate a lot of BIG companies with a huge XP install base who could move to a Linux desktop, Ubuntu LTS perhaps, Fedora for all it's many wonders is a testbed.

And to return to the more obvious hole in your argument What fscking patents are we talking about here? They have 0 court tested patents that Linux infringes on according to a company that sells an indemnity against patent sewage, who I momentarily forget but they have been referenced here before.

Nope this is just a hollow threat and I don't see RedHat or Ubuntu taking the MS coin in return for a figleaf for MS's marketing trolls

Re:Thank goodness

[drinkypoo]

Makes sense and makes sense... How much do you think SCO vs IBM has cost IBM so far, including digging up every document for their fishing expendition, answering all the bullshit motions, writing up all the reasons SCO is wrong, double wrong and still wrong? Think they'll recover a dime when SCO folds? Nope. The coffers are empty if Novell get their motion through, and if not they'll burn on lawyers long before the case has come to a close.

This is different because:

1. Microsoft is not SCO. Microsoft is a real company that will not fold over any lawsuits related to this issue.
2. Microsoft funded SCO. The USDOJ has obviously been bought off but you can only push them so far.
3. Microsoft claims to know the precise number of patents, where SCO claimed to only have a vague idea of the number of alleged infringements. It is easy to demand that they put up or shut up in court, especially since patents are filed with the USPTO whereas copyright doesn't require any registration.

I think the Microsoft deal isn't about whether Microsoft has or doesn't have anything, it's about not being the victim of it.

That is the only way in which this is similar to the SCO vs. Linux issue.

Sooner or later, Microsoft will have to have a show of hands, but not before Novell etc. start getting impatient about "what did we pay for, really? everyone else is doing the same as us, and you're not striking down on them". Until then, FUD beats facts in marketing every day of the week.

It's not necessary to win in the short term. And in the long term, Linux sells itself.

Re:Thank goodness

[opkool]

Looks like Mandriva also told no to Microsoft. See this link for further info.

From that site:

09:32 [ AdamW] sander85: there are no plans to do a deal with microsoft, and that comes from the top (fb)
  (fb is probably François Bancilhon, Mandriva's CEO).

And AdamW is Mandriva's official spokeperson.

Peace!

Re:Thank goodness

[TheRaven64]

if anyone is an idiot, that would be Novell. How so? For paying protection money against being prosecuted for unknown (and perhaps even made-up) crimes. Novell were paid $300m. If anyone wants to pay me money in order to be allowed to not sue me or my customers, they are quite welcome to.

Re:Thank goodness

[Anonymous Coward]

I have plenty of sense too!

Step 1 create linux distro and get a couple people to use it.
step 2 make a deal with microsoft
step 3 profit!!!!
step 4 close the doors with your all your MS money still in hand because only clueless idiots will still use the linux distro.
step 5 swim in the money you made from microsoft

Re:Thank goodness

[shaitand]

Nonsense. They can't come after the users because most of the users are Microsoft customers as well. Suing RedHat or Ubuntu or anyone else would be suicide. There is an organization that exists solely to hold defensive patents that protect open source software. That of course ignores the fact that IBM the largest patent holder of all has an extremely vested interest in shutting down any attempt by Microsoft to sue a Linux distributor.

All of that assumes that Microsoft has any legitimate patents (if we pretend software patents are legitimate in the first place) that cover anything in the Open Source world. Just like a DA will pile on bogus charges to give himself a better bargaining position IT companies slip through hundreds of junk patents that would never withstand scrutiny for the same reason. If Microsoft sues anyone they run a serious risk of having their precious patents invalidated.

Re:Thank goodness

[moderatorrater]

I doubt you'll find any way to recover those costs, certainly not turn it into a profit. Unless you add in the thousands, if not millions, of people who would chip in money to fight microsoft and save linux. That might change the equation a bit.

Re:Thank goodness

[Anonymous Coward]

But this is a five year deal with at least $40 million going back to Microsoft per year. $40M x 5 = $200 million. This means that Novell have effectively made $100 million. Now, take this $100 and divide it by the 5 years meaning they have made a minimum of $20 million per year. That seems ok doesn't it. Now, think about how many customers they will gain/lose over this deal. If they gain customers they profit. If they lose customers then they lose because they have to make up what they lose before they start to gain. Considering the deal produced a lot of negative publicity they will more than likely lose customers.

Re:Thank goodness

[notamisfit]

I recall him mentioning the same on the Distrowatch comments board. I had pegged Mandriva as the next to go, given their desktop focus and weakness in recent years. Really, what's left besides hobbyist distros now?

Re:Thank goodness

[laffer1]

They can also invest the money to cover Microsoft's share and earn interest on it. If they use some more aggressive approaches, they could make over 4% off Microsoft's money. Seems like a good deal to me.

Novell probably did lose OpenSuse users, but their main customer base will stick with them. Let's face it, people in education don't get that the world has moved on to other solutions like Active Directory.

Re:Thank goodness

[fbjon]

The catch is that the condom always breaks.

Re:Thank goodness

[Anonymous Coward]

1. unless my understanding is wrong, this deal DOESN'T protect the companies themselves. therefore, your reasoning about doing the deal to protect the company is invalid.

2. msft paid suse an arm and a leg ($300+ million, right?) for this "deal."

there were 100s of millions of reasons for suse to do the deal, if you know what i mean.

they sold out, though - and it might end up a financial negative in the end. we shall see.

Re:Thank goodness

[JohnBailey]

Assuming it was all about money, then both sides lose. Nobody is going to walk away with any money. On the other hand, IBM and Novell have shown that they are able and willing to protect their customers from this nonsense, and that they will push back if someone pushes them. IBM could easily have taken a step to one side and effectively said that it was nothing to do with them, but they didn't. And Novell could have settled out of court, but they didn't.

Both Novell and Microsoft will lose money on court costs and resources expended during this case, but how much have they both gained in the sale of equipment and services based on a license free product they can sell on going support to?

If nothing else, it proves that Linux is not a Geek hobby OS any more. Big companies have enough invested in using it to make it worth their while spending money to defend it. So if MS decide to go to court, they will not just be taking on a fractured market made up of lots of tiny little projects, or just the Linux foundation, but the big guys who can see a financial advantage in keeping Linux around.

A while after the MS/Novell deal, Red Hat made a statement that they would be quite happy to work with MS on interoperability issues.. Providing the results were all open sourced. I doubt anybody would refuse the offer to work with Microsoft to make their product interact with Windows. But not on Microsoft's terms.

Re:Thank goodness

[r1_97]

Maybe some lawyer can answer this. Why doesn't some Linux co. ask for declaratory relief from court to force MS to put up or shut up?

Re:Thank goodness

[smilindog2000]

I wonder if the M$ threat could cause RedHat and Ubuntu into some sort of alliance? Seems like natural enemies, but who knows...

Re:Thank goodness

[mrbluze]

The catch is that the condom always breaks.

And that's only 'cause the term 'Microsoft' is only half true. It might be micro, but it's thorny and prickly. Beware or you'll surely end up with not just one virus, but probably 6 or more.

Re:Thank goodness

[the_womble]

Confirmed directly by François Bancilhon: http://corp.mandriva.com/webteam/2007/06/19/we-wil l-not-go-to-canossa/

Re:Thank goodness

[KlomDark]

> "If nothing else, it proves that Linux is not a Geek hobby OS any more."

While I agree with what you said, I think that was proved not to be a geek hobby OS a few years ago! :)

But it's still a geek OS at heat.

Re:Thank goodness

[KlomDark]

/r/heat/heart

Re:Thank goodness

[sumdumass]

Your underestimating the situation Microsoft is in. If MS goes out and starts suing everyone and everything, it looks bad in front of regulators. If they keep the FUD machine rolling, they create a sense of uncertainty and a sense of fear in businesses who are looking to take the Vista experience as a chance to break away from MS products. It is almost as if they are saying, go ahead, use our competition instead of our new OS, we will get more from the lawsuit.

Of course, if a OSS vendor sue for libel and tells MS to put up or shut up, and if MS is correct in it's claims, that vendor is pretty much ruined. None of the FOSS GPL base vendors seem to be willing to take the change and become a sacrificial lamb. And in this case, MS continues to keep thier patents for defense stand which will key regulators at bay to some degree. But the real catch is yet to come.

You see, the FSF has reacted in an surprising way. They included language in the new GPLv3 license that specifically forbids participating in the freedoms the GPL protects if a novell style deal is made and covers something the GPLv3 covers. Once this is in place and in wide use, as it is currently worded in the final draft, all MS has to do is craft a deal that places people in violation of the clause and in essence make them mini Novells who cannot contribute, release or take advantage of any of the freedoms the GPLv3 is trying to protect.

I suspect MS will craft such a deal and place it into every software license so when someone or some company buys one of those pieces of software, they will have to agree to the deal and become forbidden from participating in the freedoms the GPLv3 attempt to protect. They will offer the same software without the deal for 10 times the normal cost making it restrictive to small amounts of people with lots of cash. They will do this so they can claim that the GPL is restricting everything, not them. Hence no trouble or flags raised with regulators again.

Also, this will pretty much preclude large OEMs from offering pre-installed linux on their computers if they sell MS offerings and will effectively stop dell from selling Ubuntu. It will assist in causing forks of GPLv2 project that went to GPLv3. It will divide the FOSS community and set the projects that went forked back a significant step because now to catch up with GPLv3 versions they will have to basically clean room the improvements and fixes. But probably the most effective is it will send a severe blow to the FSF and almost make them seem irrelevant in the community causing a spur of more FUD and giving strength to their existing stuff about how the GPL is viral and all.

Many people think "just don't buy MS software then" But the fact is, too many people rely on MS products either directly or indirectly though other software they are dependent on. Companies won't just switch or give up what they are comfortable with and it will if anything trim the entire contribute back Idea taking a large portion of the available market away. Many people have no idea about the GPL details and will buy or use the MS software anyways. The GPLed projects which are cross platform will have difficulties developing for MS products or have to spend enormous amounts of cash to do so within the limits of the GPLv3. And did I mention, when someone complains, it will all get pushed back to the GPL as the problem not MS so regulators won't care too much.

Re:Thank goodness

[sumdumass]

Perhaps Novell thought that this deal will attract any Linux migrator to them, as in "I guess if these guys partner with MS, their products must clearly interoperate with Windows, not like other untrusted types aka RedHat."

I thought Novell made it perfectly clear in what it was trying to do with the deal. They were going to make stuff that makes linux work with Microsoft products pretty well. It was stated that it was about making the products interact better to assist the customer from the get go. And of course, Novell woulds sell these product on top of their linux offerings. It would be like the Exchange connector for evolution that they sold once.

This has been Novell's stance from day one. If you don't know this, I would question your ability to make informed statements like On the contrary, if anyone is an idiot, that would be Novell. Of course anyone following the situation would know that the deal wasn't about For paying protection money against being prosecuted for unknown (and perhaps even made-up) crimes. It was about Novell creating software that made the two inter-operate better which is a "known" situation.

Re:Thank goodness

[JohnBailey]

But more people are getting to know this. Should we perhaps send a thanks for the free advertising to Steve?

Re:Thank goodness

[sumdumass]

Seeing how they share the same software and possibly the same accused offenses, they probably could consolidate the cases and defend together. I know class action cases start out similar to this. However, in the position of the defense, I'm not sure is can be done to give them a joint defense. I do know that they separate defendants sometimes.

Anyways, this isn't about suing. It is about breaking the backs of the FOSS community and dividing them into GPLv3 and GPLv2 camps so they aren't a unified force. MS has the upper hand in either situation.

Re:Thank goodness

[master5o1]

question is, do lawyers read slashdot?

Re:Thank goodness

[turing_m]

Could you explain why IBM has this vested interest?

Re:Thank goodness

[gtall]

"They included language in the new GPLv3 license that specifically forbids participating in the freedoms the GPL protects if a novell style deal is made and covers something the GPLv3 covers. Once this is in place and in wide use, as it is currently worded in the final draft, all MS has to do is craft a deal that places people in violation of the clause and in essence make them mini Novells who cannot contribute, release or take advantage of any of the freedoms the GPLv3 is trying to protect."

All they did was make explicit what GPL v2 has implicit. Since open source based companies will tend to know the GPL quite well, why would they shoot themselves in the foot? Novell had the project Mono to protect and figured it would be favored in the marketplace because of some voodoo M$ promises. We'll see how well that holds up. Novell was sinking before their deal and they are sinking now. Per seat licensing is going downhill. M$ probably won't buy an OSS company because their source software (fi they have any) is already out there in the wild. They could only buy an OSS service company, but M$ isn't going to service OSS software. They might buy a company to kill it, but that's a losing proposition in the long run.

The rest of your argument is predicated on M$ wasting the landscape of open source companies by doing deals with them. With every deal, the value of the deal diminishes because M$ doesn't have enough IP for these companies to differentiate each from the others. What deal does M$ strike to rape OpenOffice? Personally I think OO is a piece of trash trying to mimic Office Malware, but some people find it useful. It is becoming clear M$ is only doing deals selling snake oil, not many companies will see the value and all they need to is look at M$'s record to be scared off.

Gerry

Re:Thank goodness

[sumdumass]

All they did was make explicit what GPL v2 has implicit.

No, they specifically added language that had nothing to do with the GPL in a reaction to novell's deal. There was nothing implicit about this on any other GPL. It even took them two tries to get it working.

Since open source based companies will tend to know the GPL quite well, why would they shoot themselves in the foot?

It isn't the opensource companies that are the problem, it is the microsoft shops and the companies and users who are still dependent on MS software for whatever reason that is the problem. They will be forced to goto a fork of GPLv2 software if they choose to participate. Of course I don't see why they wouldn't just use the GPLv3, hide the changes from the community and not give back while using the GPLv3 software. That option isn't ruled out. The entire gplv2 fork idea is assuming someone wants to participate.

Novell had the project Mono to protect and figured it would be favored in the marketplace because of some voodoo M$ promises. We'll see how well that holds up. Novell was sinking before their deal and they are sinking now.

Well, you got something half into perspective. The voodoo M$ promises was Novell being able to use MS ip to make it work. That doesn't seem anything like Voodoo and it covered mor ethen just Mono.

Per seat licensing is going downhill.

It only takes one license or seat with that license to get this problem going and effect the entire company.

M$ probably won't buy an OSS company because their source software (fi they have any) is already out there in the wild. They could only buy an OSS service company, but M$ isn't going to service OSS software. They might buy a company to kill it, but that's a losing proposition in the long run.

They don't need to buy into anything. The GPLv3 doesn't say anything about having to be an open source companies offering open source services. It says if you are part of a deal with a companie in the business of software that is discriminator and license patents you lose. This is how MS can look like it is protecting it's own users and cause the GPL to give so many people problems.

The rest of your argument is predicated on M$ wasting the landscape of open source companies by doing deals with them.

Lol No, it is waisted on predictating you not opensource companies. If I offer to protect you and only you from lawsuit on IP I claim to own, this covers you in the act of using a GPLv3 covered work, you aren't able to use the GPLv3 in that work. Now, a company doesn't have to be specific in what or where it's deal violates or protects. This is why Novell's deal works, there is nothing specific about the software, just a blanket license.

With every deal, the value of the deal diminishes because M$ doesn't have enough IP for these companies to differentiate each from the others.

No, MS doesn't have to give anything specific away. A simple couple of lines in the softare license saying "By accepting this license you are agreeing to the terms of the license. In an effort to promote competition and quality in software, Microsoft promises not to sue you or the company you are representing for the acts of using or related to using of alternative software other then software Microsoft has provided as long as you didn't place the disputed IP into the software and don't continue to use, sell or otherwise distribute the software in question after it has become known that Microsoft is claiming ownership of the IP. This offer is extended to customers of yours but not any further then you "who purchased the software" and the immediate customers. This deal doens't cover microsoft branded products"

In this situation, MS has made everyone who uses an MS product a mini-Novell who

Re:Thank goodness

[Anonymous Coward]

thank god if you don't know that I suggest you do some research over what does IBM do in the first place

Re:Thank goodness

[Volante3192]

Your underestimating the situation Microsoft is in. If MS goes out and starts suing everyone and everything, it looks bad in front of regulators....

Of course, if a OSS vendor sue for libel and tells MS to put up or shut up, and if MS is correct in it's claims, that vendor is pretty much ruined....

Well, the first one would be tough on MS unless they could bundle all the claims into one suit a la RIAA. MS isn't exactly hemmoraging money, but they're not exactly in the same position they were back in the glory days of 9X/2K either. They clearly have some doubt about how successful any suit would be otherwise why would they pass up easy money? Protecting your IP is still probably a good banner to be waving about; don't see why regulators would care at that point.

On the other hand, OSS suing for libel would be nigh impossible. It's very difficult for someone to be convicted of libel for one, the onus would be on OSS to prove that damage was being caused. They can't exactly pull the 'lost sales' card easily either. There's little else OSS could attack MS with I think as well.

Just seems OSS has a very strong defensive position, but nothing for offense. They have to just wait patiently for MS to throw the first salvo.

Re:Thank goodness

[Brotherred]

I absolutely agree. However what has not been made an issue of is the fact that FSF still says that after ratification of gplv3 distros that have done these deals will be stopped from distributing. Just take a look at the letter that I got yesterday from the FSF in response to a request for information about the Xandros deal. {{[gnu.org #336634] Inbox hide details 2:01 pm (1 hour ago) date Jun 19, 2007 2:01 PM subject [gnu.org #336634] mailed-by gnu.org Hello, Please accept our apologies for the delay in getting back to you. We rely on volunteer effort and often have difficulties keeping up. I can't give you a precise answer because I don't have the details of the Xandros-MS deal, and GPLv3 is not out yet. But generally speaking, yes, GPLv3 would stop Xandros from distributing GPLv3 software under a patent-discrimination agreement. -- I am not a lawyer, the above is not legal advice Regards, Yoni Rabkin}}

Re:Thank goodness

[Brotherred]

Any letter from the FSF pertaining to this issue damn well requires a better score than 1.

Re:Thank goodness

[shaitand]

Dunno, I pulled it out of left field. That or something about spending billions of dollars a year funding Linux development and promoting Linux based products. All of that has something to do with IBM being a Linux distributor.

Re:Thank goodness

[honor, not armor]

Nowadays, I think he delegates the disposing to Steve B.

Frosen Pees

[Mipoti Gusundar]

I for one am welcomming ou're red hat, m$ flipiing off overloads!

Go Redhat

[niceone]

You are David, MS is Goliath, your slingshot is GPL'd, Linus' rocks are... um lost it a bit there.

Re:Go Redhat

[CastrTroy]

Didn't IBM make a commercial about this?

I ordered a new box with RHEL 4 on it 2-3 days ago

[unity100]

apparently my choice was wise. can trust these people.

So...

[644bd346996]

They aren't 100% sell-outs. That's not saying much.

Re:So...

[WIAKywbfatw]

It's saying that they're willing to stand up to Microsoft's aggressive anti-OSS tactics.

And, as the biggest name in enterprise Linux (correct me if I'm wrong) that says a hell of a lot both to the OSS development and support community as well as the community's growing customer base.

If you support OSS then this is a positive step that can only build confidence in Linux and OSS in general. The alternative would, I'd argue, have been devastating.

I really don't see the reason for your negativity. Did someone at Red Hat murder your family or something?

Re:So...

[ettlz]

What do you mean by that? In what way are Red Hat "sell-outs"?

Does the fact that Red Hat makes money out of Linux and uses this to plow tons of resources into Free Software projects unnerve you?

Red Hat may take, but they sure as hell pay it back with interest.

Re:So...

[jedidiah]

Enterprise distros are already free for the taking. If he has any problem then it's with application vendors. They're the one's that ultimately determine whether something is "supported". Have a gripe? Talk to Oracle or whomever is the real problem.

Re:So...

[644bd346996]

Wrong. I have absolutely nothing against RedHat, and I already have access to all their enterprise systems. In fact, I have several friends that work for RedHat and I use RHEL daily.

What you failed to understand is that making a deal with Microsoft is the most evil thing RedHat can do right now. That they respond initially with a flat "no" is truly not saying much. All it really says is that they are not very evil (which we already knew). If, for example, RedHat publicly announced that they considered MS's tactics to be racketeering, that would be news. As it currently stands, RedHat's actions just aren't that significant. They haven't hurt Microsoft in any way, and they haven't challenged Microsoft to "put up or shut up." All they've said is "we aren't playing."

Re:So...

[644bd346996]

Read the post again, with the assumption that I'm not an idiot or a troll. Then read my other response above. If you still need help understanding what I said, let me know.

A lot of people here seem to suddenly have trouble not gushing with praise for RedHat. I simply wanted to preempt the knee-jerk reactions, and I got modded troll. Figures.

Re:So...

[ettlz]

What you failed to understand is that making a deal with Microsoft is the most evil thing RedHat can do right now.

I think we all understand that.

That they respond initially with a flat "no" is truly not saying much. All it really says is that they are not very evil (which we already knew). If, for example, RedHat publicly announced that they considered MS's tactics to be racketeering, that would be news.

But that language would be brazenly combative (Truth Happens is just an ad campaign). Might it not alienate enterprise customers?

As it currently stands, RedHat's actions just aren't that significant. They haven't hurt Microsoft in any way, and they haven't challenged Microsoft to "put up or shut up." All they've said is "we aren't playing."

Why would they want to hurt Microsoft? That's stooping to the enemy's level. Neither does their stance add up to appeasement. Choosing to not get involved and carrying on as normal, rather than letting loose with (potentially expensive) sound and fury, would seem to make tactical sense.

Re:So...

[644bd346996]

But that language would be brazenly combative (Truth Happens is just an ad campaign). Might it not alienate enterprise customers? It might, but it might also give RedHat's customers more confidence that RedHat is a serious operation that won't be a pushover in the market.

As it currently stands, RedHat's actions just aren't that significant. They haven't hurt Microsoft in any way, and they haven't challenged Microsoft to "put up or shut up." All they've said is "we aren't playing." Why would they want to hurt Microsoft? That's stooping to the enemy's level. Neither does their stance add up to appeasement. Choosing to not get involved and carrying on as normal, rather than letting loose with (potentially expensive) sound and fury, would seem to make tactical sense. You say that as if hurting a competitor that is using illegal tactics was a bad thing, ethically or otherwise. I call it fair. Nor did I accuse RedHat of appeasement.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

RedHat's customers aren't smarmy basement dwelling geeks, frothing about Microsoft 24/7.

RedHat's customers, conversely, are people who rely on RedHat to run the hardware that drives their businesses - and you can bet they don't want enthusiasts and martyrs stirring up legal bullshit by throwing childish insults at Microsoft.

Re:So...

[turing_m]

"That they respond initially with a flat "no" is truly not saying much. All it really says is that they are not very evil (which we already knew)."

Either that or they want M$ to come back with a better offer. But so far so good.

It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[dreamchaser]

Show us the patents. Enough said.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[3p1ph4ny]

I'm really confused by all of this patent nonsense, but admittedly I've not really made any attempts to understand (or even read TFA).

My question is this: aren't patents on the public record? Aren't things like Ubuntu/Red Hat open source? How hard is it for M$ to say "Look at patent 5,656,565 and lines 1-3,000 of kernel.c. This is a violation of our IP rights."

I have to be misunderstanding something, because if it was really that simple I don't understand why anyone would sign a deal without first having M$ point out what was wrong. Of course, maybe that's why everyone is pissed off... anyone care to enlighten me?

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[644bd346996]

It isn't hard. But MS refuses to name the specific patents or lines of infringing code. That's the problem.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[bytesex]

The deal is retroactive and future immunity from lawsuits alleging infringement on registered innovations, reciprocaly. And it doesn't get anymore specific than that. It's essentially a line in the sand, and the one that is suspected of having less leverage, gets less territory, or pays more. It's not specific because future innovations cannot yet be specified, nor can the situations be specified wherein, in the present, people find each other at each other's throats legally. This is why they make a deal. They promise not to sue. Or, if you're MS, it's more like: you give me your lunch money and I promise I won't beat you up.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[Kadin2048]

My question is this: aren't patents on the public record? Aren't things like Ubuntu/Red Hat open source? How hard is it for M$ to say "Look at patent 5,656,565 and lines 1-3,000 of kernel.c. This is a violation of our IP rights."

This is exactly why a lot of people are very suspicious that Microsoft doesn't do this. Instead, they just make vague statements, e.g. "Linux violates x Microsoft patents" and never specify which ones.

Although the patents are public, Microsoft has so many of them, and many of them are so crappy/broad, that it's nearly impossible for anyone to work backwards to find the ones that they're talking about and might, by some stretch of someone's imagination, apply to Linux.

So basically, it's a totally opaque threat, and I'm similarly at a loss as to why anyone would negotiate with them without first demanding to see the goods.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[Anonymous Coward]

Double click?

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[3p1ph4ny]

Okay, thanks for the explanation. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why anyone would actually sign one of these deals... apparently nobody else can either ;-)

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[FireFury03]

aren't patents on the public record?

Yes, they are - as are several million other patents, and you have absolutely no idea what sort of patent you are alledgedly infringing so good luck trying to find the right needle in the haystack.

Aren't things like Ubuntu/Red Hat open source?

Yup, which makes it incredibly easy for any patent holder to find infringing code (these days it really is impossible to write any software without infringing someone's patent - the only thing that protects the propriatory vendors is that closed code is much harder to examine for infringements).

How hard is it for M$ to say "Look at patent 5,656,565 and lines 1-3,000 of kernel.c. This is a violation of our IP rights.

Very easy. However, they have said that they won't disclose which patents are being violated because:
1. The Free software community would be able to discredit the patents (e.g. provide evidence of prior art, show the code isn't infringing, etc).
2. The Free software developers would be able to remove the offending code.

Microsoft doesn't want to licence the patents, they are simply using them as a FUD campaign to scare people away from switching to Linux - if the patents are discredited or the offending code is removed they have lost all their leverage.

To people not in the know, this is perceived as a big risk - if you switch to Linux then MS has threattened to sue you. Of course, to those of us who can see what's going on it's obvious that MS can't possibly sue anyone because:
1. That would involve disclosing the patents.
2. MS doesn't seem at all confident that it's patents are valid since the cited reason for not disclosing them is that they would be discredited.
3. MS themselves will certainly be infringing a large number of patents held by organisations who have a vested interest in Free software (IBM, the Open Invention Network, Sun, etc.) - firing off lawsuits at Free software users will almost certainly invite retaliation from those patent holders.

The patent system is nolonger about protecting your innovations, it's an arms race - everyone is infringing everyone else's patents anyway (since it's practically impossible to produce any code which isn't infringing) and whoever holds the least patents is crushed since they cannot retaliate to any threats. The whole patent system needs to be abolished - it once served a useful purpose, but these days the merits are far outweighed by the abuses.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they are a matter of public record and you are welcome to look for yourself. In the US alone there are roughly 7000 granted patents assigned to Microsoft and some several thousand more pending (a conservative estimate).

From experience, it takes a good day or two to do a comprehensive prior art or validity search on that sort of subject matter depending on the number of claims. So it could take some 14000 man days (about 38 years if I work weekends) just to read through them all and work out what they relate to and if there is any serious prior art not previously cited and we haven't even got to looking at Linux source code yet to see how things are done there and comparing the various bits and bobs.

Strictly speaking (in the UK at least), there are bits of the Patents Act that are meant to guard agains groundless threats and claiming you have patent protection when you don't. Microsoft should in theory say what is being infringed. In theory.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[geekoid]

"The patent system is nolonger about protecting your innovations, it's an arms race -..."

The nature of software and the industry makes that statement true for software, but in other areas it works just fine.

The patent system should not be abolished. It's a good system. Software and business methods need to not be patented. Clearly that should be a copyright matter.

Or, make it so all patented software myust be open it inspection. Including all code in any application that uses patented code.

BTW, for 12-15K you could have an attorney to a patent search. Hell, you could do it yourself for free. Of course, time is money but I think you know what I mean.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[jimicus]

Very easy. However, they have said that they won't disclose which patents are being violated because:
1. The Free software community would be able to discredit the patents (e.g. provide evidence of prior art, show the code isn't infringing, etc).
2. The Free software developers would be able to remove the offending code.

Taking these points in order (and I recognise they're Microsoft's arguments, not necessarily yours):

1. Absurd argument. The possibility of proving a patent invalid is a very good means to get off a patent lawsuit, so if Microsoft find this prospect so concerning, what's to say that whoever they sue won't be able to discredit the patents? Only makes sense if such a lawsuit is fought entirely in private, with no possibility of a leak on slashdot or groklaw saying "Here's a Microsoft patent, how valid is it?"

2. Almost as absurd. If the code is fundamental to a piece of software and can't easily be removed, then either that software and all deployments of it must cease to exist (possible if that software is produced by a few parties who can contact all their customers, not really practical for Linux) or it's not so fundamental, in which case it's doubtful how innovative the patent is in the first place. In the first case, Microsoft can then start suing anyone who uses the software and be sure that they'll find someone who can't easily stop using it. In the second case, the information would leak as soon as Microsoft actually sued anyone, in which case they've effectively got a patent which they cannot enforce. What's the use of a patent you cannot enforce?

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[Luft08091950]

The point isn't really to stop the infringement because it is doubtful that there really is any and if there were and Microsoft showed us it would probably be trivial to recode so there wasn't any infringement.

Microsoft wants a couple of things. They want Linux to stop being free as in beer and free as in speech.

Ultimately they want Linux to go away.

If you look at Microsoft's history in regards to partners you may notice that to partner with Microsoft is often the kiss of death. They are known for stabbing partners in the back.

Be sure that they paid well to partner with the distributions that have signed up. Novell got over 300 million dollars. It only cost them their good standing in the OSS community. I don't know the specifics of the other deals but Microsoft is paying out big to try to make this happen. You can bet that regardless of what the astro-turfers try to say this IS a big deal and we SHOULD NOT relax and think everything is fine.

I believe that Microsoft is setting the stage for its next act. I hope IBM and other large corporations who claim to support the OSS movement are watching and planning.

If Microsoft succeeds the playing field will continue to be tilted in their favor for the foreseeable future. If they fail the playing field will become level again where true innovation and competition can thrive to the benefit of all.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[FireFury03]

1. Absurd argument. The possibility of proving a patent invalid is a very good means to get off a patent lawsuit, so if Microsoft find this prospect so concerning, what's to say that whoever they sue won't be able to discredit the patents? Only makes sense if such a lawsuit is fought entirely in private, with no possibility of a leak on slashdot or groklaw saying "Here's a Microsoft patent, how valid is it?"

Which is exactly why MS won't sue anyone - as soon as they disclose their patent to any third party they lose the leverage they need in their FUD campaign. That's not to say they might not extract licence fees out of people - they can threaten to sue someone (without disclosing their patents), and some people will settle without ever going to court.

and all deployments of it must cease to exist (possible if that software is produced by a few parties who can contact all their customers, not really practical for Linux)

I think it's very practical for Linux - you don't need to care whether you're infringing or not until MS invoice you for the licence fee. And once MS ask for the licence fee you can upgrade your systems to the new non-infringing version and tell them to go screw themselves. Seems that MS can't win. Remember, MS is threatenning to sue the end users, not the distributors (who might be held responsible for recalling all the infringing products).

or it's not so fundamental, in which case it's doubtful how innovative the patent is in the first place.

Most patents aren't innovative - that doesn't stop you strong-arming a licence fee out of someone who can't afford to defend themselves though. MS is in a much weaker position if their patents were out in the open and publically shown to be invalid months before they started trying to extract licence fees.

But again, I must reiterate - I don't think MS are in it for the licence fees, they are trying to create FUD and scare people out of switching away from Microsoft based systems. Once they start actually suing people their leverage will probably quickly evaporate, so they aren't going to do that.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[FireFury03]

"The patent system is nolonger about protecting your innovations, it's an arms race -..."

The nature of software and the industry makes that statement true for software, but in other areas it works just fine.

I used to believe that, but increasingly I've come to believe that the whole patent system is flawed for one very simple reason - it can't differentiate between someone copying an invention and someone inventing the same thing completely independently.

If you come up with a new invention, are you supposed to search the patent archives to see if someone else already invented it and pay them a licence fee if they did (even if they haven't actually put their invention to use)?

Patents were there to protect innovators so that going into business manufacturing your product didn't have the risk of a well established company ripping off your design and undercutting you. If your patent covers a large chunk of a product that you are actively selling then the system probably works for that. If it only covers a very minor internal detail or you aren't selling the product anyway then the patent system serves only to hinder other people's innovation by either preventing other people from using something that they independently invented (if they realise it's already been patented and don't want to pay the licence fee), or trap people into paying licence fees once their product is selling (if you didn't realise you were infringing someone's patent).

Fundamentally, I don't see why I should invent something, take the risk of marketting and manufacturing it but have to pay you a licence fee just because you invented the same thing before me but decided not to take a risk and actually sell it (and therefore make your invention widely known).

BTW, for 12-15K you could have an attorney to a patent search.

Yes, because small businesses can really afford to have hundreds of thousands of lines of their code checked for infringement. 15K may not be much to a business the size of Microsoft, but to a small startup business (or indeed, an unpaid Free software developer) it's a lot of cash.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[Anonymous Coward]

> it can't differentiate between someone copying an invention and someone inventing the same thing completely independently.

Actually, patents aren't supposed to be granted to inventions that have a high likelihood of being independently developed -- it's one of the tests of "obvious". The fact that it does otherwise prevent parallel evolutions was known even back in olden days, but it was considered the lesser of two evils.

Nowadays, the patent system is primarily a litigation game, played in fields where it's virtually impossible to even know in advance whether an invention is obvious. And let's not forget that the USPTO is a big money-making machine, so they don't want to do anything to slow the process down.

The idea of patents is still quite sound. Even some really innovative software may deserve patents (though I tend to think a 5-year lifetime is more appropriate). But the current system is just rotten to the roots.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[ISoldat53]

MS is trying to get all of its arm twisting done now while they still have a compliant Department of Justice.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[TechForensics]

Very easy. However, they have said that they won't disclose which patents are being violated because: 1. The Free software community would be able to discredit the patents (e.g. provide evidence of prior art, show the code isn't infringing, etc). 2. The Free software developers would be able to remove the offending code.

Will some lawyer out there who knows more than I do tell me how in the h**l you can win a patent suit against a defendant who has begged to be told what infringes so he can take it out? Where the heck are your damages in such a case?

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[swillden]

Or, make it so all patented software myust be open it inspection. Including all code in any application that uses patented code.

I think the same logic should apply to copyrights. Companies that want copyright protection should be required to disclose the code in order to get it. If they want to keep the code secret (which does occasionally make sense, though much less often than people think), then they should use contract and trade secret law to protect it.

My rationale is, basically, the rationale used to justify copyright law's existence in the first place. Copyright protects expressions in order to help ideas be widely disseminated. The authors of copyright law never considered that it might some day be possible to publish your expression in a form that hid the ideas in it, so that others were unable to learn from them. How would you write a book so that people could read it but not learn from it? Binary-only software achieves exactly that, and in doing so it undermines the rationale for supporting copyright law in the first place.

Note that requiring publication of source code would not imply that others can take the published source and use it. Arguably, under current copyright law they probably couldn't even compile it, since compilation creates a binary which is a derivative work of the copyrighted source code. They could, however, read it and learn from it. They could also analyze it for security weaknesses, bugs, etc. I think that under such a copyright regime the quality of commercial code would increase substantially, and also that the amount of copyright infringement that goes on would decline dramatically. There is a lot of commercial software that infringes copyrights of commercial libraries and of F/LOSS code, but gets away with it because no one can see the source. That would change.

In the case of patents, I think software simply should not be patentable.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[jimicus]

I don't think MS are in it for the licence fees, they are trying to create FUD and scare people out of switching away from Microsoft based systems.

Nothing new there, then.

It wasn't that long ago that Microsoft were touting Windows NT as a cheap alternative OS to (then mostly commercial) Unix - port your apps to NT and bingo! away go a lot of costs. But since then, CALs are no longer included as part of the cost of the client OS (they were in the days of NT4). Seems ironic that the exact same argument is being used today to justify migrations away from Windows.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[ozmanjusri]

In the US alone there are roughly 7000 granted patents assigned to Microsoft

Try nearly 24,000 http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/search-results.h tml?search=microsoft&imageField2.x=0&imageField2.y =0.

Even in the 70 patents on the first page of that listing, it's easy to find patents Linux might infringe upon. Check this one out;

United States Patent 6466238
Computer operating system that defines default document folder for application programs
Conventional computer systems include numerous application programs which by default store files, or documents, in folders containing the application program that creates them. For example, wordprocessing documents are stored by default in the folder with the wordprocessing application program, and so forth. Thus, users who choose not to organize their documents according to subject matter or other criteria end up having their documents dispersed across numerous application-program folders, sometimes making them difficult to find. Accordingly, the inventors devised a computer operating system that defines a common default document folder for application programs. Moreover, to promote use of the default document folder, one embodiment of the operating system includes a graphical user interface which provides links, that is, one-button access to the common default folder, at file access points, such as in file-open and file-save dialog boxes accessed by the application programs. Yep, they patented "My Documents"...

If anyone had any doubt about Microsoft deliberately obtaining patents in order to harass competitors, garbage like this should dispel them. You don't spend $5,000 to get a patent like that in order to defend yourself. Its only value is as a FUD tool.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[Quantum Jim]

Very easy. However, they have said that they won't disclose which patents are being violated because:
1. The Free software community would be able to discredit the patents (e.g. provide evidence of prior art, show the code isn't infringing, etc).
2. The Free software developers would be able to remove the offending code.

Excuse my ignorance. If they don't make a good faith effort to stop the patent infringement, why doesn't that hurt Microsoft's case? I thought that if you didn't take reasonable measures to resolve your dispute before turning to a lawsuit, then that mistake could be used against your side.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[Anonymous Coward]

Please learn to use a database properly before you spread more FUD than MS. Note the difference between searching for Microsoft in the "Assignee" field and searching for Microsoft in ANY field.

Better yet, use a proper database.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[FireFury03]

Excuse my ignorance. If they don't make a good faith effort to stop the patent infringement, why doesn't that hurt Microsoft's case? I thought that if you didn't take reasonable measures to resolve your dispute before turning to a lawsuit, then that mistake could be used against your side.

But as previously mentioned, MS doesn't actually want lawsuits - they want FUD.

Re:It's really time for MS to put up or shut up

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's actually pretty simple. Short term gain. Another one of the interesting things about these agreements is that, although Microsoft is trumpeting them as linux vendors licensing Microsoft's "IP", for some reason in each of the deals it's actually Microsoft making the payment. So these companies agree to whatever the NDAed nonsense Microsoft is pushing is, and get a chunk of change to make their balance sheets look good this quarter.

And yes, that's not the way a patent licensing deal would normally work.

And so did Mandriva

[dotpavan]

from their corp announcement

Re:And so did Mandriva

[moderatorrater]

Mandriva: "Look, look, we're l33t linux people too! We hate M$! Bad M$!" Slashdot: "eh"

And if they did partner...

[micromuncher]

... its effectively an admission of guilt. Would anyone sign an agreement saying "I'm guilty of unspecified crimes"?

Re:And if they did partner...

[pembo13]

others have: Novel, Xandros, Linspire

Re:And if they did partner...

[WIAKywbfatw]

Which, from a certain point of view, makes Novell, Xandros and Linspire just one rung down the ladder from Microsoft.

Microsoft may be right on this, and they may be wrong. Would it be too much for them to produce evidence to back up their claims before demanding that everybody jumps into bed with them?

Re:And if they did partner...

[FireFury03]

others have: Novel, Xandros, Linspire

But in so doing they have gained a lot of bad feeling in the Free software community. And these companies do need the community's support - Red Hat, etc. have their roots in the Free software world and understand this. Novell on the other hand is a well established propriatory software company who has jumped into the Free software world and I don't think they yet fully understand how important it is to not piss off the community.

Re:And if they did partner...

[notamisfit]

It seems more like an Alford plea to me. NOVL/etc pay the money without admitting any wrongdoing, and MS doesn't look any further. Just to play devil's advocate, how many of the tech companies out there that x-license patents bother to list each and every one? I know the "FUD" angle is being played here against community Linux, though.

Congratulating Red Hat on not licensing with MS, however, is like congratulating them on not cutting their own throat. They're probably the closest thing out there to corporate subsidized "community Linux" out there (there's Ubuntu and Debian, but for the most part they're in a strictly "downstream" role) and the backlash from something like this would kill them dead. The average person who purchases SuSE/Linspire/Xandros in a box probably doesn't give a shit about a MS cross license; the average person purchasing RHEL more than likely does.

Anyone want to take bets on the next one to give in? So far, Ubuntu and Red Hat have ruled out "partnership", Adam Williamson mentioned on Distrowatch that Mandriva would give an official statement to the same extent shortly, Debian's obviously out, and most of the "techie" distros are probably beneath MS's radar.

Re:And if they did partner...

[Bastard of Subhumani]

I'm a Catholic, you insensitive clod!!!!

Re:And if they did partner...

[shaitand]

Novell did it for $300,000,000.

Re:And if they did partner...

[mrchaotica]

It's "Novell", damnit! Two 'l's. There's nothing "novel" about Novell, so don't mix them up!

Re:And if they did partner...

[micromuncher]

The trouble is MS doesn't play fair. They, as I understand it, do not indemnify nor release against future action. So, having such an agreement hand is effectively an admission of guilt if MS were to ever charge a partner with infraction, that they have done in the past.

Two camps?

[Penguinisto]

While the GPL is the GPL is the GPL, I wonder if this will lead to any kind of animosity between, say, RH and SuSE?

Even worse (serious question), will this lead to less interoperability between those who refuse MSFT and those who sold their souls (IMHO)? Sure, YaST vs. YUM type stuff will always be present, but what of deeper items, say things that would otherwise wind up being incorporated in kernel.org? I wish I had a better way to articulate the question ATM, but the jist is that maybe the whole 'divide and conquer' plan may work more than most folks think it will, in that either by necessity of 'patent deals' or by necessity of what-have-you, the coders @ Novell won't or can't spread their improvements to RH and vice-versa.

IMHO, that is a greater danger than any lawsuit blustering and posturing that has been coming out of Redmond.

/P

Re:Two camps?

[crAckZ]

mod parent up. this is a great question. being a linux programmer i wouldnt want my software being a part of the ones that make deals with M$. i do write for windows if a client askes but that is a contract and money. if i am donating my code it will not go to those that will absorb it then make money off of it. my open source is for the community that i respect; plain and simple.

Re:Two camps?

[asphaltjesus]

"Here here!"

I've been trying to articulate the same thing because I used to think it was about using litigation to bury distros or at least key clean-room implementations of their products.

It's unclear how Redmond will use the agreements to trigger a figurative bomb or _what_ the bomb will do.

Re:Two camps?

[Anonymous Coward]

im pritty sure apt-get killed yast and yum and long time ago

Re:Two camps?

[compm375]

I don't see how interoperability issues could happen as long as the distros keep distributing everything under the GPL.
From GPL 2:

7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

Please correct me if I am wrong but it seems that if MS gives some distros the right to implement certain features that would violate MS patents, the distros wouldn't actually be allowed to implement them without violating GPL.

Re:Two camps?

[FireFury03]

being a linux programmer i wouldnt want my software being a part of the ones that make deals with M$

You can word the licence you release under however you want, you can even put in a clause specifically excluding any distributor who has made a deal with MS. However, then the licence ceases to be Free.

It seems that you should look at a more generic licence which still allows the 4 freedoms but is also incompatible with aspects of these deals. For example, the GPL 3 looks like it will be incompatible with this sort of patent protection deal, since it requires any patent protection to be extended to *all* users of the software, not just a small subset.

Re:Two camps?

[notamisfit]

There's no rights given back or forth; it's strictly a promise not to inquire or initiate legal action. Not to mention that the FSF or any other party taking action against these companies on behalf of GPLv2 violations undercuts half the case for GPLv3.

Re:Two camps?

[compm375]

But when Microsoft sues an "unprotected" distro, can't the code no longer be distributed by any distro?

How many of you...

[iknownuttin]

when you read this, had this image of Gates, dressed as Darth Vader with the breathing, holding out his hand to Red Hat (or whomever), and saying, "Come with me to the Dark Side and we can rule together!"

No? I guess it's just me.

Or what about, "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." No?

Never mind.

Re:How many of you...

[CautionaryX]

That's funny, all I heard was a loud "NOOOOOOOOOO!".

Re:How many of you...

[Tatisimo]

I always pictured Gates as the Emperor and Ballmer as Vader standing over a small company. As the small company person nurses a wound from a chair expertly thrown at it, Emperor Gates steps in front of Darth Ballmer and says: "Throw yours at him. Let your unethical business instinct fill your soul. Together, we can monopolize the software!"

Re:How many of you...

[Chris Burke]

If it makes you feel better, I thought of that scene in Ice Pirates where the good guys get captured and made into "eunuch" servants, only they aren't actually castrated but merely threatened with a terrible-looking steel jaw castrator machine and told to behave (by the buxom villainess who had her own reasons for not wanting them snipped).

Re:How many of you...

[revengebomber]

"Luke... I patented your ideas!"

"NO! That's not true! That's impossible!"

Re:How many of you...

[db32]

MS: "Bitch Gimme the money!" *slap* RH: *BANG* "Goodbye G-Money".

Re:How many of you...

[BigBadBus]

I had a vision of Jabba the Hutt from Return of the Jedi saying "There will be no bargain" personally!

Re:How many of you...

[purld]

I did. But it was the image of a Vogon guard shouting "Resistance is useless!!!!" to a bunch of prisoners. Oh wait...!

Re:How many of you...

[jc42]

...when you read this, had this image of Gates, dressed as Darth Vader with the breathing, holding out his hand to Red Hat (or whomever), and saying, "Come with me to the Dark Side and we can rule together!"

Heh. But more seriously, does anyone have any data on the survival rate of companies that become Microsoft Partners? I've seen some vague claims that this is a sort of Kiss of Death, but I've never seen any actual data supporting or debunking this. It'd be interesting to read some facts on the topic.

It does seem unlikely that, if you were building a competitor for some Microsoft (or other giant corporation's) product, you would benefit by partnering with them.

Re:How many of you...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, Gates, Ballmer and all of the other MS managers/shrills just resemble daleks to me:

"Exterminate, EXTERMINATE, E-X-T-E-R-M-I-N-A-T-E" (whilst blowing hot air at you!) :0)

CAPTCHA: compute - Something Microsofts brains just cannot do very well. :o)

Glad

[spungo]

I'm glad that there are still F/OSS companies out there that value common sense over greed.

Re:Glad

[iAlta]

Agree, Red Hat has said before that they won't sell their souls, so I wasn't really surprised.

Re:Glad

[Skrynesaver]

It's not an either or, enlightened self interest (a better form of greed) ensures you don't piss off your developers and submitting to a racketeer is never a wise course of action, they'll just keep coming back for more

Re:Glad

[BalkanBoy]

Do you work for free? Or can you not use an extra $1000/month (or whatever amount)?

I understand the context from which you are calling others 'greedy' - but before you do that, try and have a look in the mirror to see if there was any instance where you may have been less than, shall we say, humble...?

It's only fair ...

What you're asking is ...

[khasim]

will there be any issues with patches submitted by the pro-Microsoft segment with regard to copyrights or patents or such?

Will the pro-Linux segment refuse such?

Well, that's part of what the GPL v3 is supposed to address. Just in case.

This is a war

[cloudkiller]

It looks like the MS & Linux war is finally starting to take shape. At least now I have a side to stand on. Someone get me my red hat and a cup of ubuntu, I've got partitions to make.

Re:This is a war

[ettlz]

So what, in your military analogy, do you think is going to happen to the BSDs in all this?

Re:This is a war

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll be on Microsoft's side, as always.

...
Wait, sorry, that's the BSoDs I was thinking about.

Re:This is a war

[xaositects]

The daemons will come out to pick the bones of the dead later.

Re:This is a war

[TheRaven64]

We'll be over in the corner getting some work done and ignoring the politics.

Or trolling on Slashdot.

It depends how we feel really.

Re:This is a war

[notamisfit]

They're 4-F.

Re:This is a war

[Guuge]

"He served honorably, ma'am. I'm sorry for your loss"

"I just can't believe he's gone...."

"I'm afraid we received confirmation from netcraft just this morning."

Re:This is a war

[CCFreak2K]

I've got partitions to make.

Don't you mean make && make install?

Re:This is a war

[msuarezalvarez]

Excuse a rather poor translation from the French done by a Spanish speaking person:

I believe that, short of believing in miracles, one can only expect the progress of reason from a rationally oriented political action towards the defense of the social conditions necessary for the exercise of reason, from a permanent movilization of all cultural producers with the purpose of defending---by the means of continued and modest interventions---the intellectual bases of intellectual activity. Every project aiming at developing the human spirit which, having forgotten the historical rooting of reason, trusts only on the force of reason and and of rational discourse to cause progress for the causes of reason, and which does not appeal to the political struggle in order to endow reason and freedom with the instruments of properly political nature which constitute the condition for their realization in history, continues to be, still, a prisoner of the scholastic illusion.

P. Bourdieu

Re:This is a war

[msuarezalvarez]

Hm. Google books provides a smoother translation in the footnote to page 228 in the book which comes up by searching for

Bourdieu "short of believing in miracles"

This link might take you there.

A Microsoft Deal is More Than Just Patents

[segedunum]

A lot of people have made a lot of the Novell/Microsoft deal because of patents that open source software supposedly infringes. However, once you buy in with Microsoft on one of these deals, it's a whole lot more.

I discovered a few weeks ago that as part of the Novell deal, and Microsoft selling SLES coupons supposedly, SLES actually has to be a subserviant within a Windows domain controller set up. Ergo, SLES can quite easily be replaced with Windows at a later date without anyone being any the wiser. Presumably, when this deal runs out in five years Microsoft will have hoped that they'll have replaced all the SLES and Netware servers with Windows, replaced a lot of Red Hat servers with SLES replaced with Windows, and Novell will be no more.

That deal Novell struck will do quite a bit of damage if any more like it are agreed.

Re:A Microsoft Deal is More Than Just Patents

[thewiz]

I agree with you but I also have a deeper concern:

Could Microsoft be intending to use these relationships to inject "proprietary" code into Linux distros so that they can sue at some point in the future?

Re:A Microsoft Deal is More Than Just Patents

[flyingfsck]

You need to read up on Samba version 4. SLES (or any Linux) can be either an Active Directory client or a server. Linux can just as easily replace Windows servers without anyone being any the wiser. It works both ways.

Re:A Microsoft Deal is More Than Just Patents

[Lockejaw]

MS would have to provide the code under an acceptable license in order to get it included in the distro (unless the distro managers are stupid enough to rely on the [eventually expiring] "we won't sue" agreement to protect them in the long run).

Re:A Microsoft Deal is More Than Just Patents

[notamisfit]

I think such an injection would either:

• If it could be traced to MS, or a decision on MS's part, cause MS to lose control of that particular patent due to GPL section 7, or

• Be one Hell of an affirmative defense for any suspected infringer

Supposedly, Novell's already tried this with an OpenOffice OOXML plugin. The OOXML debacle seems more outright confusing than obviously in bad faith (getting it standardized by ECMA/ISO, as MS has planned, pretty much involves giving up on associated patent royalties, IIRC).

Re:A Microsoft Deal is More Than Just Patents

[segedunum]

You need to read up on Samba version 4. SLES (or any Linux) can be either an Active Directory client or a server. Linux can just as easily replace Windows servers without anyone being any the wiser. It works both ways.

You misunderstood totally. The deal that Novell signed with Microsoft, whereby Microsoft sells copies of SLES, states that the server must be within a Windows domain controller architecture for that SLES coupon to be sold and it must be surrounded by Windows servers.

Re:A Microsoft Deal is More Than Just Patents

[JohnBailey]

I would imagine that would be very dangerous. They would have to find some way to get the code into a distro but with no trail leading back to themselves. Assuming that would also be a criminal act of fraud, rather than a corporate thing like licensing and patents, they would have to be very sure that they couldn't possibly be implicated... Not very likely. Blackmail angles alone would make it a very stupid idea. Microsoft may as well try to write a Linux virus and hope nobody ever traced it back to them.

A much more effective route, is to create a compatibility layer between Windows and the chosen Linux distros. Sell this as a compatibility tool to run on the Windows side, but only on the chosen distros, and you have your promise of MS working with Linux to make the two OSs inter operate better, without any Microsoft secret recipes being exposed. If they can make the distros change their code a little bit too, then so much better. The plan being to give them a competitive advantage by being more compatible with Windows. Then later on if the plan works, MS can change the parts the layer used to work with, or threaten to pull out, as the 5 year deal is up. If it fails, Microsoft can come the innocent and tell the world that it really tried to work with Linux.

Another very slight possibility is that they actually do want to work with Linux on some levels of the company, but while the techy areas are all for it, the business areas are trying to find a way to take it over, and the legal department are having seizures when confronted with the idea of MS code being open source instead of bound with increasingly vague but more restrictive licenses.

Re:A Microsoft Deal is More Than Just Patents

[Lehk228]

if they sold code that would allow remote use of, say, a very expensive multi-user version of office with a tiny front end on linux that handled the file storage either to the corporate document storage or to the desktop hard drive, and ran the suite itself mostly on the application server but the GUI operated as a bytecode application sent to the client machine for better user experience.

a setup like this would be less of a strike at linux and more of a hedge against eventual loss of windows share of the desktop market. losing the corporate desktop OS market would be painful, having the office suite monoculture cracked enough that people don't simply expect .doc and shit bricks when they get emailed anything else would be much more painful.

Re:A Microsoft Deal is More Than Just Patents

[mrchaotica]

However, once you buy in with Microsoft on one of these deals, it's a whole lot more.

Yeah, it's a death warrant for your company too, just as it's always been for anyone "partnering" with Microsoft over the years (whether Linux was involved or not)! Even companies too big to die (e.g. IBM) were at least maimed as a result of that kind of deal (e.g. decline of OS/2, loss of PC marketshare).

Honestly, this should be no surprise to anyone by now.

Re:A Microsoft Deal is More Than Just Patents

[dan the person]

states that the server must be within a Windows domain controller architecture

Yes, and then later on down the road you upgrade that domain controller from Windows 2003 to ubuntu 8.10 without anyone realising.

Re:I ordered a new box with RHEL 4 on it 2-3 days

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, you do know that RHEL5 has been out for a few months, right?

After using both (well, CentOS) 5 is a massive improvement.

Microsoft's strategy...

[pieterh]

... divide the Linux community, starting with the smallest weakest firms. Build up a credible patent claim against Linux (where "credible" means "incredible but nonetheless believable if you are borderline insane, as many firms are"). Attack Red Hat, and avoid annoying IBM directly.

Microsoft is doing a classic patent ambush on the Linux community, and it's significant. We're not seeing an attach on Linux, but on the Linux market. Microsoft wants to own the market.

I'd be surprised if MS actually threatened any FOSS developers, and I'd expect eventually MS to start supporting some free software projects, and eventually even the GPL, if it does get its planned iron grip on the Linux market via its unnamed patents. Free software is so much cheaper to build than the classic kind. Eventually, MS will port its stack of patent-protected lock-in technologies to a BSD or Linux core.

The weakness in Microsoft's armour is those unnamed patents. If they were to be named, they would be disarmed, and Microsoft's entire gambit would fail. In the US there is no need to detail a patent infringement claim. In Europe, Microsoft's claims come very close to illegal unfair competition; IIRC there is a clause in the European Patent Convention that says a claim of patent infringement must be backed by details of what patents are concerned.

Re:Microsoft's strategy...

[Mattintosh]

I'd be surprised if MS actually threatened any FOSS developers

And therein lies the bluff and the path to exploiting it. The vendors don't necessarily develop or own the copyrights on the code. The developers don't (usually) directly sell support contracts on the system. The vendors pay the developers, the developers produce for the vendors. But neither one is "touchable" by Microsoft. Microsoft wants to "touch" (read: take) the vendors' market. Microsoft knows they can't "touch" (read: sue) the developers for alleged patent infringement because the developers have no money. Blood from a stone, and all that...

So when Microsoft comes knocking on the vendors' doors, they tell MS they don't own the code and haven't infringed upon jack squat. MS knows they can't get anything from the developers, so they won't bother (and really don't want the PR backlash of trying to make an example of one or two of them).

As long as vendors are support only and keep the developers separate (corporate shell games are allowed...), they'll be fine. Microsoft can (and will) be told to pound sand.

Wasn't sling or rock that killed Goliath

[Dareth]

.. David killed him with his own sword.

Live by the patent sword.. die by the ... well you get the picture.

Re:Wasn't sling or rock that killed Goliath

[Deagol]

That's not quite how I remember it:

"What say you now, Goliath? Without your hair, you no longer possess your fantastic strength!"

Re:Wasn't sling or rock that killed Goliath

[niceone]

Live by the patent sword...

Surely: Live by the patent method-and-apparatus-for-inflicting-stabbing-type- wounds-on-your-enemies...?

Re:Wasn't sling or rock that killed Goliath

[soloport]

Hair? Yeah. That would be Sampson. Goliath was a a Philistine warrior; Sampson and David both Hebrews.

Re:Wasn't sling or rock that killed Goliath

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. That was called a joke, and you missed it.

Re:Wasn't sling or rock that killed Goliath

[Anonymous Coward]

Not surprising since it wasn't funny.

Time to vote with our wallet....when we can.....

[budword]

I don't buy support myself, but I do quite a bit of small time consulting for individuals and a few small businesses, and I'll be recommending RedHat without reservation. Ubuntu and Mandriva also, for those without a need for a distro certified to work with Oracle or similar product. Vote with your wallet, when you can folks. Novell drank the cool aid, RedHat, Ubuntu, and Mandriva turned down millions simply to avoid pissing us off, time to reward them for it, when we can.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[curious.corn]

I'm italian, sicilian no less, and I know what mafia means. This Microsoft thing sounds like pizzo, a tip given to avoid having your stuff burnt to the ground or getting shot in the back while walking back home... fsck it...

Re:RH: Pray to the one you will pay!!!! ASDF

[644bd346996]

Informative?

I pity the person who gets that in meta moderation.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe the "X Linux company" and Microsoft deals have anything to do with integration. More of a "We promise not to sue you" kinda thing. As for integration, I've never had a problem with Linux in a production environment. Windows on the other hand... "I have to take the system down and reboot just to patch an low priority program?"

I would take a lower paying job that's a linux or solaris house anyday over someplace that's 100% windows. Just the stress and grey hair wouldn't be worth any money. Fixing a real problem is one thing, fixing 100 dumb things that shouldn't have existed is another.

Probably drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

We have all been frustrated by lack of driver support for Linux. I suspect that MS will wind up using partnerships with hardware vendors to write proprietary Linux hardware drivers, release them binary-only and compile them into the kernels of their minion-distributions by default, thus giving the sell-out distros an functional advantage over the pure distros.

Furthermore, users of the pure distros won't be able to swipe or reverse-engineer the binaries without being at risk for infringement lawsuits.

The end result will be a market-perception of superior functionality and legal saftey when using Linux distributions that include a Microsoft tax.

Re:Probably drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent +5: Extremely frightening.

Re:Probably drivers

[kasperd]

I suspect that MS will wind up using partnerships with hardware vendors to write proprietary Linux hardware drivers, release them binary-only and compile them into the kernels of their minion-distributions by default, thus giving the sell-out distros an functional advantage over the pure distros.

Doing so would be a very clear violation of copyright. If anybody starts selling such a distribution, I predict they will receive a cease and desist letter from some Linux developers. (I might consider writing it myself, but probably some larger contributor would do so before me).

Furthermore, users of the pure distros won't be able to swipe or reverse-engineer the binaries without being at risk for infringement lawsuits.

That depends on where they live. There are countries that have a law that clearly states such reverse engineering is legal, and the right to reverse engineer cannot be given up by a contract.

In effect you are suggesting that the copyright violator sues the copyright owners over something the owners does with their own code, which would be legal in many parts of the world even if they didn't own the code in the first place.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[codepunk]

You said it yourself you are a all MS business(owned), I doubt you have any intention of running Linux
  so why would RedHat care what you do.

The bigger problem if you ever did decide to run linux is that the MS blessed distro's are as good
as dead. Go ahead and ask for some help using your new blessed linspire distro on here and see where it
get's you.

Licenced to steal

[zakeria]

I never payed for my XP software so why the hell should I pay for something that I don't have to steal, it's freedom to steal and they are trying to steal from that idea!

Re:Licenced to steal

[bmo]

"I never payed for my XP software"

Lord Vader (er, Ballmer) sends you his regards.

If you think that pirating XP is "sticking it to the man" you're wrong. Microsoft _depends_ on you doing that, because for every illegitimate copy of Windows installed, it means one less "alternative" installed.

You don't think that WGA will ever become bulletproof, do you? It won't, ever, despite Steve Ballmer's bombastic assertions that it will.

"Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

Bill Gates - about 9 years ago.

--
BMO

Re:Licenced to steal

[zakeria]

that was my point, the freedom to steal!

Here come the Borg, bitches!

[LibertineR]

Its called........discovery.

Its just like the Borg Tractor beam, the thing that stops you in your tracks while they scan you for weaknesses.

Microsoft's lawyers are just now downing the protein shakes and raw beef, getting ready to be let out of their cages.

I need to stock up on popcorn for this......

$50M, and the best lawyers anywhere?

I'm channeling Q asking Picard: "Do you really think you know what you are doing? They are relentless!"

Re:Here come the Borg, bitches!

[jedidiah]

???

Microsoft can't really sue anyone without putting their cards on the table. Even if
they try to do discovery in a secretive way, someone more likely than not will spill
the beans.

At that point, triage can be done.

Re:Here come the Borg, bitches!

[LibertineR]

Obviously, you have no experience with US Law.

Re:Here come the Borg, bitches!

[jc42]

Microsoft can't really sue anyone without putting their cards on the table.

SCO did; there's no reason Microsoft wouldn't use the same tactics. And they have orders of magnitude more dollars to spend on lawyers, judges and politicians than SCO ever did, even with Microsoft's contributions. Don't expect to read the details of the claimed patent violations during your lifetime.

And remember that, as of the 2000 US elections, Microsoft has been right up near the top of the list of campaign donors to both major parties. Why do you think the Justice Department caved and settled that big case on terms so friendly to Microsoft? And why do you think that such restrictions as exist in the settlement are routinely ignored and not enforced at all? Microsoft's management figured out how such things really are handled in the US.

so...

[everphilski]

So Bill Gates ... is ... Linus' ... Father?

Not Suprising

[jeevesbond]

It's not too suprising, although Microsoft seem to have had a few victories recently these are very small. Who're Novell, Xandros and Linspire anyway? Small fry really (with the possible exception of Novell, who've been badly burnt by the whole experience). Also remember SCO managed to sell a few of its spurious 'licenses' before IBM made mince meat of them in court. Their claims were even more daft than those made by Microsoft (remember copyright vs. patents).

As Red Hat pointed out in their excellently thought-out advert:

1. First they ignore you
2. Then they laugh at you
3. Then they fight you
4. Then you win
5. ...
6. Profit!

Ok, so I added the profit bit: no /. list should be without it. :)

Re:Not Suprising

[spungo]

Errm... wasn't that, like, Gandhi who said that? (Apart from the profit bit).

Re:Not Suprising

[jeevesbond]

Errm... wasn't that, like, Gandhi who said that?

Yes, but Red Hat said it in this context. If you watch the advert you'll see it's attributed correctly to Gandhi.

Re:Not Suprising

[dvice_null]

That video has several errors in it's facts:

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."--Charles H. Duell, Commissioner of the U.S. Office of Patents, 1899. This has been debunked as apocryphal by librarian Samuel Sass

"640KB ought to be enough for anybody."--attributed to Bill Gates (Gates denies ever saying it, and no source has ever emerged)

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famous_last_words_(sa rcasm)

Re:Not Suprising

[Anonymous Coward]

As a matter of fact, the quote is a prominent feature of the lobby at Red Hats's HQ.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[splict]

Whether on purpose or not I'm not sure, but you are definitely missing the point. As far as I know, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Mandriva all see interoperability as a good thing. No one is fighting that. And if you can find something that says otherwise I would be happy to see it.
What you are suggesting is that these companies should pay money to a competitor for (so far) baseless claims and admit a weakened and reliant position when none in fact has been shown to exist - all in order to possibly get some help with interoperability. Interoperability which, if Microsoft took the attitudes these companies did, would already be there. You are thinking very short term. If Microsoft got its way, you wouldn't have a Linux server option down the road. Good luck with your business...

Well finally

[el cisne]

Well freeking finally; Someone at least managed to have a pair;
A pair of cerebral lobes, of course, what were you thinking!!!
Oh, THOSE cerebral lobes....never mind....I guess those would work also

Re:I ordered a new box with RHEL 4 on it 2-3 days

[mcrbids]

apparently my choice was wise. can trust these people.

RedHat is definitely one of the good guys. While Google's Evil-o-meter has been slipping of late, RedHat has consistently been true to their mission. They develop technology that's open and freely available a-la CentOS and have some of the finest hacks around working full time on open stuff. (Alan Cox, et al)

RedHat tends to get dissed around here a bit because they target servers rather than workstation/desktop Linux. They are focused on making money the honorable way, and some people seem to have problems with anybody making money.

But look at their track record. They've consistently been true to the spirit and purpose of the GPL and free or open source software in general, and have been both profitable and successful in doing so. (Hint: Ubuntu is not yet profitable)

Re:RH: Pray to the one you will pay!!!! ASDF

[Anonymous Coward]

shut up you fucking slashdot parrot...

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[flyingfsck]

You are not alone. There are lots of misinformed people thinking like you do.

I think I speak for the entire OSS community...

[SatanicPuppy]

...when I say, "We'll really miss the non-business you did with us, all the expanded capabilities that our non-installed software failed to provide to your business that didn't need them anyway."

Maybe, one day, long in the future, you'll see fit not to install us again. Until then though, we'll have to accept that we had a good long non-run, and leave it at that.

Driving up the value of Free

[symbolset]

All MS can accomplish by these games is to drive up the value of the truly Free distros. Their partners are tainted. For the most part these distros are barely twitching.

By making Free distros more scarce they become more consolidated and supportable by the community. They can keep this up until eventually the remainder are too valuable for them to buy.

This strategy needs an end game to be effective, and I don't see it.

Mmm...

[Ayanami Rei]

No, yum and apt-get are cross-package technology now. But they typically stay with a distro (yum for fedora-likes, apt for debian-likes). If you've used one, you're halfway to figuring the other out.

Gandhi had two versions of that diddy

[Anonymous Coward]

Gandhi had a second version at the ready in case Japan won WW2:

1. First they march you through several hundred miles of tropical jungle

2. Then they shoot you

3. Then they disembowel you

4. Then you lose

Sue me Microsoft

[cyborg_zx]

What utter FUD. One does not sue the users of patent infringing software - one sues the makers of it. I'd like to see Microsoft try and sue me for using Ubuntu in a country which doesn't even acknowledge software patents. What bollocks.

Re:Sue me Microsoft

[kripkenstein]

What utter FUD. One does not sue the users of patent infringing software - one sues the makers of it.

No, one can sue both the makers and the users. Both are in infringement of the patent.

Sure, in a perfect world there wouldn't be software patents, or in a reasonable world you could only sue the makers about them, but in our actual world, users have gotten sued. Typically the manufacturer then gets involved (as happened with the Microsoft-Lucent case, IIRC).

Not smart.

[sumdumass]

This just isn't very smart. A flat out denial of anything doesn't do much but solidify what people already know. Redhat, with it's size, popularity and user base could have leveraged a deal that protect all users of GPLed software from lawsuits by Microsoft over disputed IP if they didn't place the IP in the software and stopped distributing that software once it was discovered to violate anything.

This could have done more to further open-source software and protect "users" then anything else. It would have ceased most all of the FUD MS could throw if they would agree to a deal protecting all users. Flat out rejections instead of deliberate negotiations isn't what we need. Of course rejecting the type of deals that would only protect a few people is understandable. My understanding is there was no attempt to change the deal just a refusal to do business with a company like Microsoft. RedHat didn't even attempt to take the deal further then reject it when that wasn't possible. It would be ideal if they could have gotten the protection from lawsuits to extend to any user of OSS software and have any enforcement efforts go directly towards the people and organizations that placed the conflicted IP in the software.

This shows where the problem really is and why clauses like the anti-Novell agreement clause is really in the GPLv3. Well, it goes a long way to explain it anyways.

Re:Not smart.

[geekoid]

Paying an extortion fee never helps, in fact implies guilt.

When MS decides to let people know what those infringements are, then we can talk about terms.

Quite frankly, I am surprised know one has told MS to put up or shut up. Take MS to court for slander/liable. If they got something, they will have to show the court. If they don't have anything, or don't want to show the court, then they can shut the hell up.

Re:Not smart.

[mdm-adph]

How can one party ask to "change the deal" when the other party is talking out of its ass?

Re:Not smart.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it goes a long way to explain it anyways.

Just as your username goes a long way to explain things....

Re:Not smart.

[sumdumass]

First of all, I'm not sure what or who your talking about when saying talking out their ass. But by definition, a deal would mean that more the one party agrees to what they are part of. So in order to have a deal, they would have to agree. Now saying "I cannot agree to those terms but if we could change them a little, I could" is a start.

The this process of trying to change the deal to something more agreeable which is called negotiations, happens and the result is either a deal or no deal. The difference between trying to make a deal and get some extras verses giving up altogether and flat out refusing to participate is that one way some has a chance of happening. The other nothing has a chance.

Re:Not smart.

[sumdumass]

Watch out, the legal spelling nazi's will claim you don't know anything because you wrote libel as liable.

An that note, I have wondered this my self. Why hasn't anyone took them to task. I think the answer is that they aren't sure there isn't a patent issue or IP issue at hand. And us taking them to court means their patent suit is defensive and MS gets to sue everyone claiming they only use their patents for defensive reasons to keep regulators and whoever away. I think getting into a court room with legal battles involving microsoft will pretty much ruin any OSS/linux/GPL-based company trying it. Now, to be specific, this is the only area I think would have that effect, taking microsoft to task for something other then IP violations it claims are there might have a different outcome. But if MS is correct on this, Problems will happen fast. What they need is some independent third party company in some jurisdiction were it can be incorporated easily, fast and to let this company go down in a way that everyone could walk away without injury or losses.

Now, as for the extortion fee bit, It doesn't necessarily have to be extortion. Novell's deal wasn't, Novell ended up with more then MS did. There is nothing saying Red Hat couldn't do the same plus get protections for everyone. Anyways, I wasn't advocating being part of the deal unless it could be negotiated into something that wasn't extortion. You know, something that says if you didn't put it into a GPLed software and stop distributing it once it is known (they would have to tell) you wouldn't get sued for using or distributing GPLed software that might contain MS IP in it. I know Red hat would feel like it was taking on the grunt of responsibility for the entire OSS community but they could open a charitable fund to let other donate for the protections they worked for.

I suggest any other large company that MS attempts to offer a deal with, They should look and see if something could be negotiates that protects users and freedoms the GPL offers. MS may flat out deny any attempt but you won't know if you don't try. Sadly, Red hat thought posturing was more important the trying, or didn't even think about trying because the deal was from MS or something so it will be up to others to _try_.

A deal with MS isn't inherently evil, It is just that some of them are. Nothing in what I am asking is part of taking those evil deals, It is to make then not evil and benefit everyone in the process. If MS won't come off of anything then walk away. But if they give protection to everyone, what harm does it do?

Re:Not smart.

[Anonymous Coward]

And to think, your the first one to ever say that, you must be so proud.

Ok, MR obvious, what's your nect deduction? Hmmm? Anything usefull to add?

Guess not, but it makes you wonder what AC would comment like this and have nothing meaningful to say.

Re:I ordered a new box with RHEL 4 on it 2-3 days

[drinkypoo]

RedHat tends to get dissed around here a bit because they target servers rather than workstation/desktop Linux. They are focused on making money the honorable way, and some people seem to have problems with anybody making money.

No, they get dissed around here because they used to target workstation/desktop Linux, and many of us served as their beta testers during this period, and then they discontinued the product which we were testing, made the public product deep beta (Fedora gets all the latest bleeding edge stuff, which is fun in some ways, but the truth is revealed by the fact that it has to be in there and working a while before it makes it to RHEL) and told us we should be happy about it.

I am grateful to Redhat's contribution to Open Source, but I don't appreciate the way they handled that situation and so long as there is a better option, I will take it. Luckily, there is.

Re:Time to vote with our wallet....when we can....

[morari]

Vote with our wallets? Ah, God bless capitalism! But seriously, I pirate Windows and legally download Linux for free, so I guess I'm doing my part...

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[drinkypoo]

With yet another stunningly bad decision, Red Hat puts the nails in its own coffin. I own a business that's all MS right now (plus certain important proprietary software).

How wonderful for you.

Red Hat is going to lose some serious credibility down the line when/if more people have to make similar decisions.

And you just lost all credibility with your FUD.

I have little to no reason to even *consider* software that is going to give me extra integration headaches, and I can't believe that I'm alone in my thinking.

I have every reason to support Free and Open Source software, and no reason to go with Microsoft across any business.

Delilah

[Dareth]

I believe Delilah has cut out your brains... Samson.

Are we surprised?

[petrus4]

Red Hat are pretty much the oldest Linux company in existence of any reasonable size. When asked, they consistently make noises that very strongly suggest that they're aware that anyone who wants to in any way make money with Linux should consider themselves Stallman's bitch by default.

As such, they're not going to sign agreements with Microsoft or do anything else which might upset the "community" of red eyed fanatics in any way. They know who their father is. ;)

Re:Are we surprised?

[fsmunoz]

So I assume that you take you psicotic hate for RMS, the FSF and the GPL to such a degree that you would prefer for RedHat to strike this shameful deal with Microsoft? Regardless of what that means for free software of any kind, GPL or BSD?

As for the "community", I'll say it again: your comments leave little margin to guess were the real "red eyed fanatics" are. Some know who their father is, you apparently have little problems in having Bill as step-dad as long as it furthers your only objective of badmouthing RMS and anything remotely associated with him.

Re:Are we surprised?

[petrus4]

So I assume that you take you psicotic hate for RMS, the FSF and the GPL to such a degree that you would prefer for RedHat to strike this shameful deal with Microsoft?

That's "psychotic." ;-) And did I say that? No, I didn't...which means you're making assumptions.

I'm also mildly disappointed, fsmunoz. We've conversed a couple of times before now, and you haven't added me to your foes list yet? What's taking you so long?!

I'm aiming to have pretty much everyone from this site who views the FSF even remotely positively, on my freaks list. (As in, having added me to their foes) You can help!

Re:Are we surprised?

[fsmunoz]

We've conversed a couple of times before now, and you haven't added me to your foes list yet?

I don't usually resort to that when confronted with someone that persistently makes no sense and seems to live to badmouth others. I start by assuming good faith, debating, well, rational behaviour - nothing you would know about. In your case this was lost since you don't respond well to actual arguments and prefer to thrive in ad hominen attacks and baseless drivel.

I'm aiming to have pretty much everyone from this site who views the FSF even remotely positively, on my freaks list.

Given that you're a troll - and you are - I prefer to have your comments unburied just in case some absurd accusation you make goes unchallenged - otherwise you're harmeless, since most people here already know you're a troll, at least in this broad topic. My foe list is empty, and it wouldn't surely start with you. Your concerns about how others see you is interesting, but not surprising, given your fixation with the FSF.

Re:Are we surprised?

[petrus4]

Given that you're a troll - and you are - I prefer to have your comments unburied just in case some absurd accusation you make goes unchallenged - otherwise you're harmeless

If I'm harmless, and my accusations are absurd, why is there a need to challenge me?

Re:Are we surprised?

[fsmunoz]

There's an "otherwise" in there. In any event whatever you say, and also whatever I say, in /. ammounts to little in the grand scheme of things. But since I decide to comment here nonetheless I'm free to call you up on your BS, even if it's harmless.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[Nimey]

Have a little respect for tradition, sonny. You should post that as a "Netcraft confirms it, Red Hat is dying" troll.

The fact that you're 100% MS is proof

[Eric Damron]

that you're clueless.

Giving in to a bullies demands for protection money is NEVER a good idea. That should be simple enough for even a MS fanboy to understand.

Re:The fact that you're 100% MS is proof

[Anarke_Incarnate]

Just Adding that while Novell gave Microsoft money, Microsoft gave Novell a LOT MORE money in exchange. Novell did not "Pay" extortion charges, they traded a $5 for a $10.

Re:The fact that you're 100% MS is proof

[Eric Damron]

True. MS is paying big bucks and we have to ask what they expect to get out of it.

They paid Novell over 300 million. But now Novell is obligated to give them money for each sale of it's distrubution. I doubt that MS will ever gain back the 300 million so I'm betting that they are setting the stage for the next phase of their plan to eliminate Linux or at least cripple it.

FUD can be a powerful weapon. The original poster is proof of that.

Will MS ever bring a lawsuit against a Linux vendor? I don't know. It would be risky. For one thing they would have to lay their cards on the table and once that's done the OSS community could either invalidate the patents or code around them. Those two options I don't think fit into Microsoft's evil little plans.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[DogDude]

The bigger problem if you ever did decide to run linux is that the MS blessed distro's are as good as dead. Go ahead and ask for some help using your new blessed linspire distro on here and see where it get's you.

If I ever installed a Linux box at work, it had better have 24/7 tech support. I'm not asking Linux geeks for help. "Business use" means that it *has* to work. I'm not talking about some generic PC at home that may or may not play DVD movies for me so I can dick around in forums, trying this and that. It had better be as close to bulletproof as software can be, which is why I'm saying that interfacing with all of the MS stuff is the #1 requirement, as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[DogDude]

I'm misinformed because I need to use software that I know is going to work with my existing software? Hmmm... OK....

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat ... (um, you never said hello)

[mergy]

"I have little to no reason to even *consider* software that is going to give me extra integration headaches, and I can't believe that I'm alone in my thinking."

This coming from someone who is running an all Windows shop. MS products are unable to integrate with themselves. Why START thinking now?

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[DogDude]

I have every reason to support Free and Open Source software

Blind, unwavering faith in an idea with no reason or facts to back it up. You're not an Islamic or Christian Fundamentalist also, by any chance, are you?

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[abaddononion]

This is a ridiculous statement anyway, and just shows that you're not out to give any real linux distro a chance.

What do you think Red Hat sells, exactly? Do you think they sell software/code? bzzzzzt. Wrongo. They sell support. 24/7 support. In fact, from what I hear (I cant factually say this offhand, but I think most non-biased surveys would show it), it's a LOT easier to get support out of Red Hat these days than it is out of the beast that is Microsoft. I know that when I call M$ tech support, I usually give up after about an hour of trying to fight through hoops. Ive had less communication with Red Hat (since I know what Im doing anyway), but the few times I have had to contact them, it has taken me very little time to get the answer I wanted or needed. Usually an "is this supported?" issue.

I think it's safe to say that Red Hat isnt losing your business one way or another, as Grandparent suggested. Sounds like you're not out to try anything.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[mpitcavage]

Hey, I saw you at the Office 2007 feature unveiling, weren't the muffins great! I tell you what, I can't believe they let us try Office 2007 FOR FREE! FOR 30 WHOLE DAYS! ONLY A WEEK AFTER IT WAS RELEASED! Yeah, Microsoft's great *sigh*.

Anyway, I'm still fuming that you got that last mousepad that said "THE WOW STARTS NOW!", that would have looked sweet next to my Dell Rig at work.

Gotta go now, my buddy just squirted me some screenshots of the Windows Server 2008 Beta on my Zune! (Brown rules)

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[DogDude]

A lack of decent applications that run on Linux to replace my mission critical apps is why I can't even consider Linux now.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[drinkypoo]

I have every reason to support Free and Open Source software

Blind, unwavering faith in an idea with no reason or facts to back it up.

I believe that you are an asshole. I back this belief up with the fact that you have made ignorant assumptions about whether or not I have reasons or facts to back up my belief, and then chosen to share your stupidity with the rest of us.

You're not an Islamic or Christian Fundamentalist also, by any chance, are you?

Sorry, no. Actually, if you dug way way WAY back into my slashdot comments, you could find me badmouthing the GPL and complaining about its viral nature, saying that when I make a release it is typically under the BSD license, et cetera.

But along the line someplace (I don't remember when, but slashdot remembers - although finding information on slashdot is a lost cause) I changed my mind. I came to the realization that Freedom for software is the only way to ensure freedom for users. And I have come to believe that the GPL, perhaps even version 3 of the GPL, is the way to best ensure that.

However, I have never been a Microsoftie. This is probably because I had experience with multiple other systems before I ever spent much time with Windows or even DOS. In elementary school and at home it was the Apple ][. In junior high and at home (by then) it was the Macintosh. Then I got an Amiga, and had a real taste of what computers could be like and haven't been happy since. Sure, AmigaDOS had its failings, and there were plenty of them. But they never did anything so horrible as did Microsoft.

Microsoft, however, has been doing bad things to the industry since their inception. If your paper tape of altair basic was defective, Microsoft would not replace it. You had to buy it all over again. And I'm talking about reading the tape the first time in a known good reader. Since then Microsoft has been caught red-handed time and time again engaging in anticompetitive business practices, including leveraging a combination of a virtual monopoly over desktop computing (on the wane now, but only slowly, and very much still in effect) and the proprietary nature of their applications to force users to stay with their so-called "solutions".

More recently, Microsoft has found itself unable to compete on technical merit, and so has engaged in a FUD campaign against Linux, the major thrusts of which were funding SCO in order to get them to carry out a Pyhrric lawsuit against IBM and Novell in order to produce a cloud of FUD, and now the patent agreements and their refusal to put up or shut up about the patents that Linux supposedly infringes. If Microsoft knew that they could nail Linux, they would absolutely do so because it would send a clear message: Run Microsoft, or Run Away. But they know no such thing, because any patents Linux supposedly infringes would have to fail a test for obviousness. Microsoft knows it doesn't have a leg to stand on, and will only keep the FUD machine going as long as possible.

If you want me to go on longer about how the GPL can save us all or at least is our last best hope for interoperability, I will. But I don't think you do. So I won't. Suffice to say that you don't know what the fuck you are talking about, that your attack on me is utterly unwarranted, and I would appreciate it if you didn't try to put words in my mouth or thoughts in my head. There are plenty of both in their respective places already.

P.S. Isn't accusing me of following a party line while you're buying Microsoft's FUD at wholesale a little hypocritical?

Letter to Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

"How much will you pay me to make all my open source projects licensed under BSD instead of GPL?"

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[abaddononion]

Again, this shows pretty much a lack of any sort of looking into things on your part. Linux pretty much has a competitive application on every front. And all it takes to find it is pretty much a google search with the word "linux" in it. For example, "Linux video editing software" or "linux accounting software", ad nauseam.

I think what you're trying to say is "a lack of proprietary apps on linux is why I cant consider it", because most likely, you dont want apps that actually do the job best, as much as you want apps where, when something goes wrong, you have a company that you can point a finger at and say "It's not my fault, it's theirs. Call them and make them fix it." Plenty of companies run on linux machines. I run a full OS server shop here at the University I work at. Do you think I am handicapping myself to a subset of applications? No. When I need an app for something, I google for it, and so far I havent had that fail for me yet.

The only option linux tends to have trouble with is games. So maybe you cant convert your Windows shop to linux because you dont want to lose the ability to play World of Warcraft at work?

Im sorry, but I have a hard time taking any of your statements with any sort of merit. You're nothing more than a troll with backwards, dated ideas on what linux is, and you have no intention to do any research or ever attempt to change them. Have fun living in the 1980s.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[Cyberax]

RedHat sells support. And it's a DAMN GOOD support - much better than from MS. We had a problem with IPX/SPX network stack in W2K3 and it took ages to debug and resolve problem.

But when we had a problem with SAMBA on Linux (winbindd did not work well) - it was resolved in little less than an hour with RedHat support.

As for mission-critical apps - usually you can run them under emulation. We have a couple of legacy apps working happily in Xen. And of course, Linux can interoperate quite nicely with Windows, so you can have mixes Windows/Linux environment.

GOSC, GNU/Linux, RedHat, Ubuntu ... my heroes!

[OldHawk777]

GNU/Linux/Open Knights of Quixote; you are charged to bravely defend freedom from the crass tyranny of global corporatist oppression. They use human, culture, art, science, democracy, and economy terms spun 180 degrees from any reasonable meaning and/or truth.

With intent to harm; these political, corporatist, religious plutocrats, and their unclean and unleashed semi-literate hate rabid followers are now rising upon their; metaphorical, "hoofed hind haunches" and seeking to enslave and aggressively destroy human curiosity, creativity, and human expectations of survival for all future children of Gaia.

None are as blind and/or evil, as those who cannot see the analogous invasion and subjugation of government by anti-capitalist corporatist and anti-christ religious. For the foreseeable; future, the rights of humanity are at an end in this world, the honorable forces of freedom are falling to the evil forces of corporatist institutionalized tyranny in governments globally.

I grievously regret that all will not be over for most of US or EU quickly ..., our self-induced end will come torturously slow.

All is DOOMED, prepare yourself, no need to repent, god recently died again, heaven is filled to overflowing with Christians, Moslems, and a few Jews [NO MORE ROOM!]. Also, there are cold-eternal-full free-beer keg at the party in hell for anyone requesting, THANK GOD for sensible and reasonable options.

The hell of it is there are no glasses/mugs or straws and cups ... you must drink beer from the 5 liter pitchers or the tap [BOTTOMS UP!].

For those that do not understand, how this relates, GNU/Linux and the Open community are about freedom and responsibility to humanity, and MS Gates is a corporatist plutocrat. What do you want to be today?

I dumped my suse, I won't buy dell, this past weekend Ubuntu is up for my computers, and I first used Red Hat in 1997.
|
THANKS to the good folks and leaders of Red Hat, Ubuntu, and everyone in the Global Open Source Community.

Priating Windows is NOT doing your part

[businessnerd]

I'd like to take this chance to try and set the record straight when it comes to pirating Windows. Without getting into the morality of pirating in general, pirating Windows is still helping Windows. Sure Microsoft doesn't get the revenue for the software, but they get the market share. And that's really what the OS market is about. First you get the OS market share, then you push the OS exclusive apps, then you get money, then you buy the khakis, then you get the girls (or something like that). Why do you think Microsoft has sold Windows to parts of the developing world for as low as $3? They don't care if you pay for their OS as long as you use it.

The moral of this story: The only way to "stick-it" to Microsoft, is to not use their products at all, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Re:Priating Windows is NOT doing your part

[stratjakt]

Y'know, outside of a handful of rabid /. posters, nobody is really interested in "sticking it" to microsoft.

They just really don't care.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[Lockejaw]

Again, this shows pretty much a lack of any sort of looking into things on your part. Linux pretty much has a competitive application on every front. And all it takes to find it is pretty much a google search with the word "linux" in it. For example, "Linux video editing software" or "linux accounting software", ad nauseam.

It's also possible that he's in a rather small niche market or that his company is using an internally-built "mission critical" app and doesn't want to take the time to port it.

Re:I ordered a new box with RHEL 4 on it 2-3 days

[notamisfit]

Really, what did you expect? The boxed desktop Linux market just isn't there; it wasn't there in '98 when venture capitalists were tripping over themselves trying to throw money at Linux anything, and it isn't there now. Novell had to move into the enterprise to keep SuSE alive; ditto with Linspire and OEM's. Unlike Canonical or SPI, Red Hat has to make money, both in the short and long term.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[Anonymous Coward]

Does your Microsoft stuff even work with your Microsoft stuff?

May I suggest that you learn a little bit of GNU/Linux, you'll probably be less inclined to orient yourself towards MS-approved distros.

For a minimum of headaches, start by deploying Free software over Windows -- there are a number of good applications, nearly all of which will run faster and better on more serious GNU/Linux servers.

YES - that rules

[xgr3gx]

Finally! I'm sick of seeing distros fold to M$. Go Redhat, Go Ubuntu! That rules. Even if Microsoft had proof of IP infringment, OSS Kernel programmers would have it replaced before the suit even went to trial! I said it before --- SUCK IT Microsoft!

Re:YES - that rules

[Anonymous Coward]

WAY TO GO RED HAT!!!..Finally a company with balls AND brains not to do deal with businesses who are with ill-conceived, half-witted, lawsuit threatening jerks...

Are we surprised about petrus4's RMS rants?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you need some help. You seem to exhibit some kind of demented love/hate obsession over Richard Stallman. If in real life you are ever stalking him, a restraining order may be put in against you. RMS is hetero, so you need to find another man to obsess over who is more your type .

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[DogDude]

Part of an app doing the "best job" is to have 24/7 support. I do NOT run an IT business, and having an IT staff on hand to write a custom software package that I can buy off the shelf for Windows is absurd. Stay in your ivory tower. Reality isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Re:Different quote....

[arthurpaliden]

Actually I keep thinking of this quote being uttered to Novell et la sometime in the not to distant future.

Darth (Microsoft) Vader: I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.

LOL.

[twitter]

If I ever installed a Linux box at work, it had better have 24/7 tech support. ... "Business use" means that it *has* to work.

If it works, why do you need 24/7 tech support? Red Hat does tech support to help you with changes, but really once a GNU/Linux box is up it stays that way.

It's amazing how people like you will put up with all sorts of M$ breakage and weirdness, then project even greater problems onto something you have never used and know nothing about.

Re:LOL.

[DogDude]

It's called mission critical software. If a cash register goes down at 8:00 PM EST, I need someone on the phone right then, not the next morning whenever the support person for the tiny software company gets back to work. I've seen Linux systems go down plenty of times. Don't try to sell me the "Linux never breaks" FUD.

Re:LOL.

[Billly Gates]

Both Redhat and SuSE offer enterprise support.

Re:LOL.

[dedazo]

Your rah-rah sentiments about Linux are great, but you've obviously never had a job at a real company with a real data center and real computers. Right?

More like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'll sign that agreement and hop on the bus-sized hydrogen bomb. :-/

Yeee-HA indeed...

Re:I ordered a new box with RHEL 4 on it 2-3 days

[unity100]

better to wait it cook in the wild. my other box is still rhel 3 and im happy.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[DogDude]

Microsoft's FUD at wholesale

I'm not buying into any FUD. I'm an end user of software. I couldn't care less about "freedom" and all of that malarkey. I need my software to work. Right now, my MS software works just fine. It's not FUD. It's a fact. Consider yourself lucky that you have the luxury of choosing software based on religious philosophies. Don't forget to tithe a portion of your income to the OSS altar (FSF).

EXCELLENT!

[larryau]

WOOT!

Way to go Red Hat.

Obviously someone was listening to the community. Way to step up Red Hat.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[drinkypoo]

I'm not buying into any FUD. I'm an end user of software. I couldn't care less about "freedom" and all of that malarkey. I need my software to work.

If you want your software to work, you should care about freedom and "all of that malarkey" because when your software doesn't work in a closed model, you are often left without recourse. Especially if you are past end of life.

Consider yourself lucky that you have the luxury of choosing software based on religious philosophies. Don't forget to tithe a portion of your income to the OSS altar (FSF).

While I agree that monetary contributions are worthwhile, there are ways to contribute other than money. Since most of my money is already spent (in fact I'm well in debt) I typically make contributions by assisting with the development of GPL software. There's also a certain amount of proselytization work, kind of like being a missionary except I'm working for me and not a mythical bearded man in the clouds.

No, its an admission of lack of funds

[nurb432]

You can still be in the right, but when they can kill you out of attrition without a second thought, sometimes its best just to go ahead and team up to avoid the fight.

When MS bothers to tell me what the patents are...

[rewt66]

... then I can bother to care about whether Linux (or anything else) infringes.

Until then, they can get lost.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[DogDude]

If you want your software to work, you should care about freedom and "all of that malarkey" because when your software doesn't work in a closed model, you are often left without recourse. Especially if you are past end of life.

Yes, and there's also a chance that I could hit the lottery, too. The potential risks of software (especially MS software) being discontinued and being completely SOL is a minor one. Sure, it could happen, and I could be hit by lightning, too. It's just not all that realistic, and in most cases, not a very good reason for considering or not considering a piece of business software. I'm much more afraid of using some barely used OSS app, it being discontinued, and my only option being to hire a very, very expensive programmer/consultant to dig out of the mess. That happens all of the time. I'm not too afraid of getting "stuck" using products that are used by millions and millions of other people.

Besides, that whole argument just doesn't really hold water. Worst case scenario: You're using a proprietary app, the company making it folds over night, and nobody else knows how to use the software. 9/10 times, you "Export" your data in any kind of format you can, massage it, and stick it in a new product.

If anything, I'd say the "You're DEAD if your proprietary software stops working" argument is a good example of what FUD really is.

Billy causes more downtime than the Titanic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since my job involves saving your ass from your own stupidity, let me vent here for a moment.

Hey, Zippy the Wonderpet, if one of your systems goes down, isn't it your job to FIX it, rather than passing the buck to Apu in India?

I bet you got that MCSE framed on the wall, don't you?

Re:Billy causes more downtime than the Titanic...

[DogDude]

Hey, Zippy the Wonderpet, if one of your systems goes down, isn't it your job to FIX it, rather than passing the buck to Apu in India?

No, it isn't my job to fix it. That's why I pay large sums of money for software. If I wanted to fix software for a living, I'd (still) be working in IT. Thanks Christ on a toothpick that I'm not. End users don't fix their own software, nor should they.

It's no wonder that IT people rarely advance into top management. The myopia of people in IT careers is absolutely staggering.

Re:Billy causes more downtime than the Titanic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop, stop, stop it, you're killing me...

Let me rephrase your post.

"I'm ignorant. I don't know a damn thing about what I'm doing or the equipment my business depends on. It's my god-given right to be ignorant. For some unfathomable reason, I washed out of a job in IT, yet I still troll Slashdot. I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but by God, I'm in charge of it. Now why the hell won't Apu call me back?! I'm going to call my account rep..."

You sir, are the funniest thing I've heard all day, and will no doubt be the end of Western Civilization.

Now, my cell just went off. You are probably calling me demanding to know why you you can't replace a sup 720 with a 1900XL. Just like Apu, I'm going to ignore you while I get this 911 system back up.

What a twit. "I'm the head mechanic! I don't need to know the difference between English or Metric!" "I'm Chief Surgeon! I don't wanna know about where the patient is bleeding!"

People like you make me laugh in terror for our world.

Re:Billy causes more downtime than the Titanic...

[DogDude]

I sell dog and cat food. Whether the software that runs my cash registers is open source or not is completely irrelevant.

Re:Billy causes more downtime than the Titanic...

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL mission critical dog food!

Our killer response:

[Anonymous Coward]

You can use our patents but ONLY if you GPL your program implementing them.

MS then cannot use the patents. They CANNOT afford (because they don't want) to GPL their programs, so they can't implement them. It's definitely a RAND agreement: ANYONE, including those that cannot afford monetary considerations can decide to license their work under the GPL. They don't even have to stop using their current license (MS's shared source license, for example).

So MS cannot respond to the counter proposal and MS's requirement that we pay per use for their patents (which would kill the GPL) will kill the GPL code MS attacks.

REAL mutual destruction.

However, MS have more to lose than the GPL coders, in much the same way as a rich man has more to lose when they buck the system, whereas a penniless peasant has nothing to lose.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[darkwhite]

am I going to look at a version that has MS's blessing, and will work with my stuff, or would I look at a product that has no kind of guarantees that it'll work with my existing systems? ... I have little to no reason to even *consider* software that is going to give me extra integration headaches HAHAHAHAHAHA

thanks for the laugh, feel free to stick with your Microsoft-certified headache-free software

Re:Priating Windows is NOT doing your drugs!

[zakeria]

your right its like stealing from your drug dealer, still your hooked but saving money and the more money I save the less money the drug dealer makes making it seem to an extent less attractive to be a dealer but on the other hand if I start supplying my drugs to others that aren't hooked then they too need to have a dealer when hooked.

lights spliff... deep drag..

Thing is my drug dealer is ripping me off, and it feels good to get something back!

Later: Re: Red Hat Rejects Microsoft Deals

[zakeria]

Microsoft throws dummy from pram and rejects rejections.

MSFT should file suit or shut up

[christian.einfeldt]

There are now 1,458 people who have challenged Microsoft to sue them in court and prove Microsoft's patent claims, or shut up with the patent claims. Included in the group are Eric S. Raymond (number 130 on the list), who is the author of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," and Patrick Berry, (number 1,458) who is one of the sys admins for Distrowatch and Linux.org. Here are their journal entries:

130. Eric S. Raymond. Yes, Microsoft, the guy who's been harshing your mellow since I wrote The Cathedral and the Bazaar in 1997. Linux user since 1993, so I've been violating your nonexistent patents for fourteen years. Sue me first. Please, oh please! Because I don't think I've kicked your sorry asses enough yet, and I'd love another round with you chumps.

1458. Patrick Berry, Linux User #65,411, since 1997, I have been converting thousands of businesses, schools, charities, and users, to FOSS. Microsoft is a small pathetic multiple convicted felon pirate, whereas I am a voting retired disabled veteran, and I welcome the opportunity to expose more of Microsoft's greedy insanity! I am Patrick Berry, TSgt., USAF (Retired) technician, and I run ALL the FOSS at http://livecdlist.com/ http://distrowatch/ http://linux.org/ http://yolinux.com/ I am curious, do you also intend to sue your VP Hilf, who runs 200 Linux machines, in a lab, and Akamai, who run all your websites behind their 15,000 Linux servers? Don't worry, I will name them in my countersuit. Microsoft is the DOOMED multiple convicted felon pirate!

So yeah, Microsoft, exactly which patents are you referring to out of those 235 patents? And which FOSS projects violate which patents? Please do show us.

MS should be required to validate their claims...

[3seas]

...otherwise it potentially a scam using Terrorist tactics (fear).

Where is Homeland security on this?

Re:Of Red Hats and Yellow Pants

[lazy_playboy]

Sorry. We're only interested in posts that can even make a vague bit of sense*. Please fuck off or try again.

*yes yes, I realise the contradictory nature of posting this on /. If you think this is important please refer to the 3rd sentence above.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[Billly Gates]

Ouch to your karma dude.

I do give your credit for having balls for stating something like that here. :-)

BTW there is no difference between blessed and non blessed versions of linux. At least not that I am aware of.

Why do you need integration on a server? A desktop where you want to roll some excel com+ object in your custom vb app is one thing, but servers require 24x7 uptime depending on your needs of your business. SQL Server is the only thing that pops into my mind where integration with the desktop is required. You can run other platforms for just about anything on the server end to talk to win32 applications. ODBC and JDBC can talk to any database on the planet.

Samba and eDirectory aka NDS run pretty well on linux for win32 desktop management Unix including linux have a niche with internet applications and databases where performance, cost, and reliablity is generally alot higher and is needed for a server environment.

If ms starts suing customers of linux and shutdowns the samba project with an injunction is the day when linux users should start to worry and get ready for battle but such things are not happening.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[Billly Gates]

What are your mission critical apps if you do not mind me asking?

I saw something about a cash register going down. Most POS software is win32 based but I have seen X based terminal POS's for quite some time running SCO or Linux as well.

SAMBA4 not ready for production

[Anomalyst]

Although I am eagerly awaiting SAMBA4, it is currently only a Technology Preview, far from ready for a production takeover. An essential piece is duplicating the latest Distributed File Sysytem (replication) functionality in W2003 R2 and other AD bits like password encryption (although that should be in the forthcoming Alpha). SAMBA3, IIRC, integrates well with a NT4 environment, as a member. Can even be PDC a but not a Backup Domain Controller, so you lose a bit of redundancy if you forswear MS servers entirely, from a business perspective that is a tough cookie to swallow unless you have someone on staff well versed and diligent in backups with offsite rotation. I would love to see some of the big names: RH, IBM, Sun throw some bucks and/or development resources their way to accelerate the process. There are few other projects that will as much of an impact on the current MS yoke than SAMBA4, represent a huge ROI. A whole spectrum of choice from simple clients and member servers sharing files to vampiring the entirety of an existing AD structure then replacing and retiring that MS infrastructure with F/OSS alternatives. I see the light at the of the tunnel, I just hope it's not a train.

Re:I ordered a new box with RHEL 4 on it 2-3 days

[hdparm]

He's done right. Stick with tried, unless you really need some RHEL5 features.

Furthermore, as long as your subscription is current, you get both channels and free iso images for both versions.

IBM reaps great benefits from this

[symbolset]

They get to be the hero of Linux, and that sells a lot of servers. They also get to remind the rest of the world very politely that if you're going to pick a fight with Big Blue you had better bring heavy weapons and iron underpants.

Microsoft...

[BrokenHalo]

...must be very sad to be so alone, shunned and unloved. How tragic.

;-P

Microsoft got one big bug and two little ones!

[Anonymous Coward]

Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Mandriva are three of the biggest names in Linux. They of course want interoperability, but on THEIR terms... Meaning they won't pay protection money to Microsoft. Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Mandriva are companies run by smart people, and they've seen how the Open Source community shunned SUsE, Xandros, and Linspire. They understand that their consumer base hates Microsoft. If they didn't, they'd use Windows. They want to see Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer available to buy for Linux, instead of the stupid attempts Microsoft is trying. The fourth big name in Linux is the GNU Project's favorite Debian, and the fifth is well, SUsE.

Red Hat, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Debian, these are the big distros you should totally surport, as they've rejected the dark side!

At least

[ghostbar38]

They are loyalty to what they represent! Congrats RedHat!!

RAWR!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, my GNU/Linux machinen never fail! THEY NEVER FAIL! Never misconfigured or just plain fuckin' grub going tits up? NOOOO, NEVER! RAWR!! And my MICRO$HAFT server bluescreen every twenty minuten!!! RAWR!!! Yes, yes, thanks EVER so much for telling us HOW IT IS!!

Response?

[gmac63]

Uhhhh, what?

Re: Thank geedness

[http]

Umm...urm...Debian and Damn Small Linux come to mind without putting in any research.

Re: Thank geedness

[notamisfit]

I thought DSL *was* a hobbyist distro. Besides, we all know that SPI will more than likely never enter into agreement with Microsoft.

I can hear gears grinding...

[Azuma Hazuki]

This sounds like the preliminary formalities before a very large, ugly war...this is making the metaphorical nasty little "cha-chick" noise of cocking weaponry, over and over again. People are taking sides. I'm no Nostradamus, but I have a few predictions about this.

First, the "sellouts" are going to be used as meatshields. They will be the first casualties; the small ones always are in wars like this. And they chose to ally with a group that wants them nothing. They're pissants anyway, given their size and mindshare, but they can still take a few bullets for the Borg. And their corpses, dead or unholily kept alive, will be waved as warnings. Picture ripe, impaled bodies on stakes.

Second, the big players are going to fight in a strange "indirect-alliance" manner. What I mean by that is that Canonical and RedHat, for example, aren't going to announce any formal alliances, and will fight the war on their own fronts, but when push comes to shove they'll lean on IBM. This is because IBM is in direct opposition to SCO (and hence Microsoft, because MS is funding SCO).

Third, IBM is something of a wildcard. I don't think they're quite as friendly to Linux as most people here seem to, or at least not for the reasons most people want to believe. It seems like another "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" situation. Assuming OSS wins this fight, I would advise the heads to watch their backs around IBM...Big Blue isn't exactly Evil-free (TM) itself. I just have this unnerving feeling that they're supporting OSS only for their own interests.

Lastly, I don't think Microsoft actually has that much in the way of violated IP, if anything. Their reluctance to release the supposedly infringing patents, combined with the reasons mentioned above for not doing so, makes it sound like they're bluffing on a handful of useless cards and giving the other players the hairy eyeball, waiting to see who folds.

Let's hope OSS comes out on top of this...whatever happens I have a bad feeling that it's going to damage the OSS community just because of how much FUD MS spews and how dumb the average marketer and manager is. The one positive thing I can see coming out of this is that it might cull the "weak" (read: weak-willed) players.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[dn15]

This is exactly the response Microsoft hoped for. They aim to scare MS shops that are considering Linux so that they only deal with the distributions that deal with Microsoft. On the surface it my seem bad because this has the potential to fracture the community somewhat. But it may also be a very positive thing in that it gives the distributions a chance to show their true colors and let us know where they stand. We'll see which distos are willing to be wrapped around Microsoft's finger and which ones aren't.

Re:Vice-Versa

[Technician]

I wish I had a better way to articulate the question ATM, but the jist is that maybe the whole 'divide and conquer' plan may work more than most folks think it will, in that either by necessity of 'patent deals' or by necessity of what-have-you, the coders @ Novell won't or can't spread their improvements to RH and vice-versa.


With the battle lines drawn, I see danger as do many. As with many big battles, there is danger to both sides. I was thinking about the vice-versa bit and thought now would be a lousy time to not be into open formats. More and more they are being required for interopibility. This divide and conquer plan may be working in reverse for MS. They have closed standards to lock others out. Others have open standards that make closed standards undersiable and unimportant. Guess who has a huge risk of being hurt. This is a 2 sided battle. It is no longer a Monopoly crushing the competition.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[Nibs Niven]

"I own a business that's all MS right now..."

Really? Then please explain this: http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?display=uptime &site=phydeauxpets.com&find_site=GO.

If your business is "all MS", then why are you using CentOS for your web site? I guess ISS couldn't do the job for you...

What a troll...

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[Technician]

If I need to/want to introduce a Linux server one day, am I going to look at a version that has MS's blessing, and will work with my stuff, or would I look at a product that has no kind of guarantees that it'll work with my existing systems? Hmmm... Tough decision there.

You are in business. Make business decisions. Do your cost analisis. Check the percentage of pwned IIS servers and the uptime of Apache on Linux. Check the SQL exploits of both MS and My. Check the per seat license cost. Check the time from 0 day to patch cycle. Check interopobility. Not all your clients in expansion (you do have future plans for expansion?) will be running an all MS shop. Will your server support Safari on Apple? Firefox on Linux? or are you stuck in requiring IE on XP or Vista?

Make business decisions based on business needs. I have.

We have Linux servers. We have Ubuntu desktops with one XP machine and one dual boot machine. Per seat license was a biggie here. We upgraded from Win 2K, kept older hardware, avoided per seat OS and office application costs. We also avoided additional per machine costs for photo editing, AV software, and CD burning utilities. This has reduced our IT costs greatly. The only problem I've had with is simply running out of disk space. Windows would not have fixed that.

Very few need Turbo Tax and other Windows only software. We kept our Windows machine to run it instead of trying to putz with Wine. If we have downtime later, we may invest the time in training. In the meantime, everything just works and works well.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[Technician]

And all it takes to find it is pretty much a google search with the word "linux" in it. For example, "Linux video editing software" or "linux accounting software", ad nauseam.

So when it the last time you authored a DVD movie on Linux? How about using a TOPO map program such as Back Roads Explorer? How about the bundled program to upload maps and POI to your GPS Nav unit? What do you recommend to replace Turbo Tax Small Business Edition?

Compare Q-Light to Freestyler. Compare TOPO State series on Back Roads Explorer with anything Linux.
http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/product/1488.ht ml
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Artistic-Software/Q -Light-Controller-8523.shtml

I'm hoping someday Freestyler will be ported to Linux.
http://users.pandora.be/freestylerdmx/

Ouch! Ouch!.... I feel like I supporting the MS monoculture.... No! No!.. I'm supporting a diverse environment.

My router, servers, and most desktops run Linux. My favorite desktop distro is Ubuntu. My old 386 is dual-boot for when I need to upload maps to a new area to the NAV unit. (Windows 98 assigned a blocked by the router IP address for obvious reasons..It is not permitted online). I picked up a new (larger) hard drive for my laptop. I stuff the old Win 2K drive in it when hitting the backroads and I want to use Back Roads Explorer in the country or when doing a lightshow using Freestyler. For online, it's back to Ubuntu. Someday the old Windows 98 and 2K applications will go with the old hardware, but in the meantime it's dual boot or Hard Drive swap.

In summary.. Find the hardware and software to meet your needs. You can no longer expect it to all run on a single general purpose computer. You may need other hardware. Prime evidence of this is MS released Vista. They also released X-Box. Neither is a replacement for the other.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[linuxci]

Yes, and there's also a chance that I could hit the lottery, too. The potential risks of software (especially MS software) being discontinued and being completely SOL is a minor one. Sure, it could happen, and I could be hit by lightning, too. It's just not all that realistic, and in most cases, not a very good reason for considering or not considering a piece of business software. Of the top of my head, IE6 was effectively discontinued, no sign of improvements were made for years. The Firefox started becoming popular, Microsoft revived the IE team, we got IE6SP2 and IE7 out of it. Can you honestly tell me that IE development would have been revived without Firefox being a success? If you say it would then why did they stop development in the first place. Also at one time good old dependable Microsoft were committed to supporting IE on Mac and even Solaris (look it up), these completely died ages ago.

Now, IE is the most obvious example, but I'm sure other people could find more. On the leisure market, people who invested in plays for sure music only to find that if they bought a zune it certainly wouldn't play.

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[freakxx]

hey, you crazy guy, you said in one of your previous posts that you run a business of selling dog & cat's food (ur nickname also shows something similar)....and if so, what do u need more than 1. spread-sheet (for billings) and 2. may be word-processor (to send official confirmation letter) or 3. sometimes a presentation-app (to convince ppl that u sell good food, although I doubt that u do)....And for ur knowledge, all these requirements are fulfilled by Open-Office. For item no.-2, if you need to send soft copy, you can save as ".doc" or you can export as ".pdf" and then send it. For printing, you don't need to do even export or save as ".doc".

None of the open-source guys will come to buy your food for their pets if they realize that their receipt is printed after using an M$haft crap. You need to count upon ladies only :-)

Re:Different quote....

[tabby]

actually that applies to any license for a MS product

Re:I ordered a new box with RHEL 4 on it 2-3 days

[Builder]

What about their closed source software (RHN Satellite and proxy)?

What about their use of a proprietary database for their closed source software (Oracle)?

Ok, I took your advice, & here is what I found

[Anonymous Coward]

Alright, sure: I'll take that challenge - why not (so, here is what I turned up, from a quick scan of SECUNIA.COM):

"Check the percentage of pwned IIS servers and the uptime of Apache on Linux" - by Technician (215283) on Wednesday June 20, @01:12AM (#19574975)

I tell you what, I will use the # of vulnerabilities found in BOTH webservers, because I could find it easily enough!

IIS (first URL) shows less bugs/vulnerabilities than Apache (2nd URL) does (and less critical ones) & in fact, 10 TIMES LESS!

IIS -> http://secunia.com/product/1438

vs.

Apache -> http://secunia.com/product/73

(Uptime? That's relative & largely dependent on who sets the servers up & how they did so, as well as maintaining them - that rides on the programmers (who build say, ISAPI dll's (not as good as ->) or ASP.NET server-side garbage cleanup capable apps), administrators, &/or techs running it imo, more than the code itself in them & % of "owned" IIS servers is going to be possibly higher, because everyone targets MS stuff (because it is largely used (the OS itself & peripheral wares), though you may see more Apache webservers (because it's free, the price is unbeatable)))!

"Check the SQL exploits of both MS and My." - by Technician (215283) on Wednesday June 20, @01:12AM (#19574975)

SQLServer 2005, from SECUNIA.COM:

SQLServer 2005 runs from birth to current, with 0 security advisories (and, keeps NASDAQ running 24/7 x 365 days a year (the fabled "5 9's" of 99.999% reliability too) on Windows Server 2003 fully patched.

http://secunia.com/product/6782/?task=statistics

(I hope MySQL has zero bugs, because once I saw this on SQLServer 2005? I did not bother check on MySQL!)

Anything else you would like verified?

APK

P.S.=> Not trying to really "bust on" anyone in the *NIX world, but that is just what I found... & I am sure people here are going to try to "soft-soap" what I found (as I did in my theories on why you find more Microsoft stuff targetted, with their OS & office suites alone, that's just fact - most used OS & Office-ware on the planet))

However, the secunia data above? Those are not "MY FINDINGS"!

They are just data from SECUNIA.COM (i.e. - A pretty respected security-oriented website) apk

Re:I ordered a new box with RHEL 4 on it 2-3 days

[Pecisk]

I personally where very happy about when Fedora project came to light (contrary to the most of whining crowd) - in that time, I was already convinced that basic parts of OS should be done or driven by community (a la Debian or Ubuntu) and companies should be bothered just with making money AND therefore paying wages for our superior coders of kernel and other stuff. I don't use RedHat/Fedora/CentOS myself, but I can agree that they are very good community citizens, they honor licenses, they honor freedom of code and customers. They opened Netscape iPlanet directory server code, they improve it, they work with OLPC team, they provided free fonts as replacement for infamous msttfcorefonts package, etc.

It is a little sad that Novell, while having capacity to be also such champion of open source, didn't came even close, and just because of bunch of executives who agreed to sell their hearts to evil over. I think as community we understand a lot of things from this - that there are things which are so basic of us that can't be changed.

So, it is great that old knights of open source shows a solid standing together in this fight.

I'm dubious about Europe Market...

[marcosdumay]

Microsoft may be planning on abandom the EU market (and most of the world at the same time). Not by free will, but to cut loses.

First, they don't cooperate with Justice orders, several times, just seeing how far they can go while still outlaw. That on itself isn't a big deal, but is part of te puzzle...

Then, Microsoft start its public campaign for defamation of Linux based on patents. It seems that the sole reason it took so long was that MS expected the EU to adopt software patents too. So, by starting the campaign, they gave up on software patents at EU.

And now, Microsoft seem to be betting all their horses on patent deals. That is not a sustainable strategy, so either they have some pretty good cards at hand and are just gainning some time, so they can prepare a surprize assault and keep their market share, or they have no more cards at hand and are just gainning time before the crunsh.

By the way, only fools make deals with Microsoft. The recent facts just showed us who are the pointy-haired bosses.

Is petrus4 harmless?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not so sure that you are harmless. You clearly crave some kind of attention, but be careful. With the experts with whom I have been consulting, if your pathology worsens much more, I will move for you to be added to the national sexual predators database.

Re:Is petrus4 harmless?

[petrus4]

Is this for real?!

JBoss?

[abertoll]

Doesn't RH own JBoss?

JBoss has teamed up with MS...

http://today.java.net/pub/n/3397

Re:Ok, I took your advice, & here is what I fo

[Technician]

"Check the percentage of pwned IIS servers and the uptime of Apache on Linux" - by Technician (215283) on Wednesday June 20, @01:12AM (#19574975)

I tell you what, I will use the # of vulnerabilities found in BOTH webservers, because I could find it easily enough!

Bookmark this page;
http://isc.sans.org/ The SANS Internet Storm Center keeps track of data swarms caused by worms, bots, and other out of control threats. When they occur, pay attention to what machines are exploited. It's not always workstations on cable modems.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070620/ap_on_go_ca_st _pe/dhs_computer_security

Care to guess the OS exploited?

Nice try.
IIS (first URL) shows less bugs/vulnerabilities than Apache (2nd URL) does (and less critical ones) & in fact, 10 TIMES LESS!

They tested Apache version 2.0.x. The current versions are 2.2.x. I can declare Windows 98 full of unpatched problems.. and be right.

IIS secure? Apache secure?
They both have exploits. The number of exploits is one thing. The number of exploited machines is another.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=IIS+exploits& btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Apache+exploi ts

To make you feel good, here is a current Linux exploit;
http://www.scanit.be/uploads/php-file-upload.pdf
And Windows exploits
http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/security_respon se/weblog/2007/05/mpack_packed_full_of_badness.htm l
http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=2994
http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=2985
http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=2979
http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=2976

A Safari exploit;
http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=2982 (It's on Windows, not Apple)

To be fair some Linux worms and exploits;
http://www.packetstormsecurity.org/unix-exploits/l inux-exploits/

For workstations which visit the web, I avoid Windows. Just seeing the headlines is enough.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6465833.stm

I know they were nice and didn't bother to mention the OS, but I think it's very likely the monoculture OS. If you have any data on the number of non Windows bots in the herds, let me know. I'm looking for any data on the breakdown of OS on exploited bots.

Current June 2007 exploit list... http://www.packetstormsecurity.org/0706-exploits/
From the list.. 06072007-CVE-2007-2237.zip
Description:
Microsoft Windows GDI+ ICO file remote denial of service exploit.

comicsense-sql.txt
Description:
Comicsense suffers from a SQL injection vulnerability in index.php.

CVE-2007-2815.txt
Description:
Exploit that takes advantage of the Microsoft IIS5 NTLM and basic authentication bypass vulnerability. I wonder if this is one of the patched MS ones?

Many of the exploits are php / SQL exploits. I don't think MSSQL is immune.

Feel free to resear

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[abaddononion]

So when it the last time you authored a DVD movie on Linux?

I dont have a response to some of this, because a lot of this stuff Ive never tried to do. However, the last time I authored a DVD in linux, I used Kino, and a program called DVDStyler, which is a front-end to the DVDAuthor command line utility. Both of which will show up easily under a Google search. Ive also heard good things about Q DVD Author. Again... people seem to be a lot quicker to complain, a lot slower to look for things.

Re:Ok, I took your advice, & here is what I fo

[Anonymous Coward]

"Feel free to source more than one security advisor. It may be helpful." - by Technician (215283) on Wednesday June 20, @11:57AM (#19581243)

Good point & I'll agree (2nd doctor's opinions always are helpful):

(I didn't have time (got called into work to resolve an issue, but am home again now))...

"IIS secure? Apache secure? They both have exploits." - by Technician (215283) on Wednesday June 20, @11:57AM (#19581243)

Yes, that's the very point I was trying to make...

"The number of exploits is one thing." - by Technician (215283) on Wednesday June 20, @11:57AM (#19581243)

Yes, & there is apparently MORE reported on Apache Servers, up to 10 times more, per SECUNIA's data @ least.

"The number of exploited machines is another" - by Technician (215283) on Wednesday June 20, @11:57AM (#19581243)

That always comes down to WHO is setting the systems up & admin'ing them, can you concede this?

E.G.-> http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?s=784 c7caab0a4072b2e2cb96198eeb995&t=16097&page=2

See that url, humor me, especially THIS one... there is a reason why, because it "backs up" what I said above... with quantified numbers!

I.E.-> There, on the CIS Tool 1.x test (runs on Solaris, Linux, BSD, Windows etc. et al)?

I put out a roadmap of how to get an 84.735/100.000, w/ verifying photo of my score... I have challenged Linux folks to beat it here:

http://linux.sys-con.com/read/382946_f.htm

No takers... or, no one could!

Today, on a BSD related post (since most of the Linux folks @ the URL above suggested BSD for security)? I put the SAME CHALLENGE FORTH to BSD users here @ /. (slashdot/root lol!):

http://bsd.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=238993&cid =19578849

Hopefully, there WILL be some "takers" this time, from the BSD world!

(That 84.735 score in the techpowerup.com url above? It is as good as I can get it @ least, on Windows... stock though?? Even Windows Server 2003 SP #2 only gets like a 20 iirc, out-of-the-box/oem stock!)

"To make you feel good, here is a current Linux exploit;" - by Technician (215283) on Wednesday June 20, @11:57AM (#19581243)

Well, it wasn't about THAT to me, but... since you put it THAT way? This does a better job:

I.E. - Windows Server (9%) itself has less bugs and LESS CRITICAL ONES, than Linux 2.6 kernel builds (13%) do!

Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition @ SECUNIA

http://secunia.com/product/1174/?task=advisories_2 007

vs.

Linux's @ SECUNIA (2.6 kernel builds/latest):

http://secunia.com/product/2719/

"For workstations which visit the web, I avoid Windows. Just seeing the headlines is enough." - by Technician (215283) on Wednesday June 20, @11:57AM (#19581243)

Heh, I don't... see the URL above from techpowerup.com!

Again - on how I note how to setup Windows Server 2003 SP #2 (default install IS workstation/pro, you add server tools as needed, on the fly during setup, OR later as needed) to get that CIS Tool 1.x score of 84.735...

"If you have any data on the number of non Windows bots in the herds, let me know. I'm looking for any data on the breakdown of OS on exploited bots." - by Technician (215283) on Wednesday June 20, @11:57AM (#19581243)

LOL, cool... you're a "data archivist", as am I (for stats & such for backing during debates)... which IS good!

(I just thought you were trying to "overwhelm & devastate me" w/ a flood of figures (and I a

Re:'wierd link

[Technician]

That always comes down to WHO is setting the systems up & admin'ing them, can you concede this?

E.G.-> http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?s=784 c7caab0a4072b2e2cb96198eeb995&t=16097&page=2

It took me a while to figure out the link. I was looking for information on some poor configuration, but the link was to a mild flamewar. Then I got it. It's emotional kids setting up servers. Got it.

I'll concede that gamers and hackers aren't the best admins much of the time and fall prey to games, pranks, and exploits. They are the ones you tell you have penetrated their machine, here take a look this address; file://127.0.0.1/ I can see all the stuff on their hard drive. It's not amazing how many of these kids fall for it.

One of the comments in your link sums it up well.

"Never underestimate the ignorance of a noob.
In America we have Drive-Up ATM's with BRAILLE buttons."

Re:'wierd link

[Anonymous Coward]

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?s=6c9 40230061cf2255e2a54b64250e66f&p=365996#post365996

That is something you MAY find useful... because it outlines HOW to get the 84.735 score (of 100% perfect, impossible imo, & to be online OR do anything you may need to, servers-wise, online) on CIS Tool 1.x.

Download for CIS Tool 1.x (for Solaris, BSD, Linux, & Windows) is here:

http://www.cisecurity.org/index.html

For YOUR reference, & HOPEFULLY? Usage... see my P.S. below!

My photo verifying my score is here:

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?s=6c9 40230061cf2255e2a54b64250e66f&p=366342#post366342

* Sorry about the Messiness of that last post, since you stated it was difficult to decipher the link url & the pertinent data within... & I hope you find this useful information (because of your stating you steer clear of Windows workstations).

APK

P.S.=> That all said & aside? Would you care to TRY the CIS Tool 1.x for you *NIX platform, here @ slashdot, & compare it to my score??

I posted a challenge for that here, today, @ slashdot:

http://bsd.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=238993&cid =19578849

It would be GOOD to see you there, and get your feedback on YOUR *NIX (Linux, Solaris, or BSD (NO MacOS X though)) version you use!

The test is ACTUALLY FUN, in a 'nerdy/geeky' way (and a good thing to do, because I think/feel you will find it VERY comprehensive, many things may be "old hat" to you, but I think/feel you may learn something from it also... I know I did!)...

LOL - put it this way: This challenge? It's about "putting your money where your mouth is", lol (good natured laff, not ribbing here), AND for myself/most importantly?

That is so I can see IF Linux/Solaris/BSD guys CAN actually do better than I have @ present, on this system (Windows Server 2003 SP #2 fully hotfix patched)... apk

We are waiting for that.

[jotaeleemeese]

The moment MS has the bad sense to sue Red Hat (Ubuntu is a non issue at the moment, since they don't have a big commercial presence in the US) they have to disclose what are the patents they are claiming are being violated.

Once that is done, each patent can only follow 2 paths really:

-It is declared invalid, Red Hat continues business as usual, MS reputation is badly damaged (as if they have any good reputation left) and reminds us thy kind of bully they really are.

-The patent is declared valid by the clueless US legal system. Red Hat then removes the features "tainted" and markets a bastardized version of its products in the US (in the rest of the world, where software patents are not valid, people continue to laugh at MS's desperate attempt to remain technologically relevant) Mild inconvenience since in all likelihood the core services for which you have a Red Hat box in a datacentre (Web server, DB server, etc) are not encumbered by patents (unless MS claims they invented the http protocol, databases, sendmail, or some other bizarre claim which, as things stand, would not be beyond them, but I digress).

At the end, Red Hat Linux offerings will be clean from MS claims and FUD.

As for interoperability, I see no issue. MS has integrated reluctantly many open standards on their wares, and Red Hat makes their money in the server market anyway, where the machines needing to inter operate are Windows ones, not Linux or UNIX ones.

If MS tries to touch OpenOffice, Sun protects that. If they try Samba, good luck with that (they copied CIF from somewhere else).

In synthesis you are full of it, but thanks for playing.

Blah, blah , blah

[jotaeleemeese]

EU, India, China, Russia do not have software patents.

Blah, blah, blah.

Re:Blah, blah , blah

[sumdumass]

There is more to it then software patents. You have to have the ability to close shop and not be pursued by MS though any court decision in any other country. If your company in whatever country sues a US company in the court of that land, MS could still counter in a court in it's land. the US. What might/could happen, is that they have to put up and they do so in another country were they could win the patent suite. Then this debt incurred from losing the suit or just showing up to defend, would be binding on whatever company in almost every country.

International agreements force companies in one country to honor the debt claims in another. There might be a situation were they can challenge the claims but I suspect it would require them to operate in that country only. And to this point, it might be hard to show damages and get the libel case into trial.

I have been thinking that unfair or deceptive business practice claims could possible force MS to disclose to regulatory agencies which would become public knowledge after a certain period of time. So, If some company in the EU, Russia or whatever filed a complaint saying "Microsoft is attempting to deceive your company's customers and potential customers with false claims of liability in order to trick them into using their own software", Microsoft might have to disclose some if not all of the claims they are making or end up sanctioned and paying fines to keep them secrete.

the problem with that is, it would probably take a while before you could convince someone it is bad enough to need investigating and then that investigation will take some time. MS could stall and appeal decisions and it might be 5 to 10 years before something happens. And we all know that 5 years is like 5 generations in software time and relevance. Look at how long it took for complaints about windows 95 and 98 to get to a resolution. And those resolutions were so outdated they aren't even enforced now.

Really?

[jotaeleemeese]

Well, in reality land, where you clearly are not, Sun, IBM, Red Hat and many others offer you 24x7 Linux support.

So what is your problem again?

We stop selling you that FUD....

[jotaeleemeese]

.... when you stop selling us your "Linux is not supported in mission critical environments" one.

Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu = last bastions of hope..

[cristobalmiguelo]

These guys cannot possibly succumb to a vague threat from Microsoft.

Ubuntu: Shuttleworth's integrity doesn't allow him to.
Red Hat: Has an extreme responsibility to the Linux community to make sure that Linux stays correct because they are the big commercial boys.
Debian: These boys stand for free software. They might as well hang themselves if they sell out to MS.

...and with how lousy Vista is, we should make our move and make Linux into everything somebody could want; it's allllmost there. I'm not kidding when I say that every single client and friend of mine who "mistakenly" bought a Vista laptop or desktop has regretted it and wants XP. It's actually quite sad how a large company can destroy itself with such a trashed-out product when they really should know better. It's a sign of Microsoft's arrogance and a sign that things are severely wrong with the company when they crank out a product that nobody likes. It's just unfathomable to me they could make such a stupid move...

So, now's the chance to go for the jugular!

Buy Dell Linux boxes!

Done... -C

Re:Bye-bye Red Hat

[cp.tar]

I was quite impressed when I saw cash registers in the largest Croatian supermarket chain running under RedHat. And the owner introduced that years ago.